PROOFS 


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GIFT  OF 


NEW  PROOFS 
OF  THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 


BY 


S.    S.    HEBBERD 

II 


t 


BOSTON 

SHERMAN,  FRENCH  &  COMPANY 

1914 


COPYRIGHT,  1914 
SHERMAN,  FRENCH  &  COMPANY 


PREFACE 

Some  will  take  offense  at  the  very  title  of 
this  book.  The  existence  of  the  soul,  they  will 
say,  has  been  discussed  through  thousands  of 
years  from  every  possible  point  of  view.  It  is 
folly,  then,  to  claim  the  discovery  of  new  proofs 
that  were  hidden  from  the  great  masters  of 
thought. 

I  answer  that  these  new  proofs  are  all  rooted 
in  the  principle  demonstrated  in  Chapter  I  — 
that  all  thinking  is  a  relating  of  cause  and  ef- 
fect. And  whoever  reads  that  chapter  care- 
fully will  see  that  this  demonstration  could  not 
have  been  made  until  modern  science  had 
reached  its  present  stage  of  development.  I  am 
not  posing,  then,  as  a  rival  to  the  great  masters 
of  the  past.  But  I  occupy  a  privileged  posi- 
tion whereby  an  insight  can  be  gained,  impos- 
sible in  their  day.  Hence  these  new  proofs  of 
the  soul's  existence. 

All  Europe  is  now  plunged  in  the  greatest, 
most  murderous  war  that  the  world  has  ever 
known.  And  in  this  sudden  sinking  of  our 
civilization  into  the  lowest  depths  of  barbarism, 


304129 


PREFACE 

we  are  simply  reaping  a  harvest  the  seeds  of 
which  were  sown  more  than  a  century  ago.  A 
skeptical  mania  then  began  which  has  gradually 
undermined  the  belief  in  God  and  the  soul.  But 
man  must  worship;  having  rejected  the  true 
God,  he  grovels  in  the  dust  before  the  God  of 
War.  And  if  man  is  soulless,  why  should  he 
not  be  hurried  —  like  other  animals  —  to  the 
slaughter-house  ? 

The  issue  of  my  book  just  now  seems,  then, 
opportune.  For  it  is  night  that  reveals  the 
stars.  And  in  this  present  night  of  horrors, 
people  will  be  apt  to  give  heed  to  proofs  that 
God  still  reigns  and  souls  exist. 

S.  S.  H. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEE  PAGE 

I     THE   NATURE  OF  THOUGHT         ...  1 

II     THE  PERFECT  CAUSE 28 

III  THE  UNITY  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS        .      .  43 

IV  CONFLICT  OF  SENSE  AND  REASON      .      .  54 
V     FREEDOM 68 

VI     IMMORTALITY 77 

VII     CONCLUSION  85 


NEW  PROOFS  OF  THE 
SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  NATURE  OF  THOUGHT 

The  chief  problems  of  philosophy  -  -  and, 
above  all,  the  problem  of  the  soul  —  can  be 
solved  only  by  starting  from  a  clear  view  of  the 
nature  of  thought  as  distinguished  from  feel- 
ing. Hence  I  begin  with  an  attempt  to  prove 
the  following  thesis :  The  essential  function  of 
all  thinking  is  to  interpret  the  given  in  terms 
of  cause  and  effect. 

It  will  naturally  be  demanded  that,  first  of 
all,  I  define  the  causal  relation.  Cause,  it  will 
be  said,  is  a  word  of  many  diverse  meanings ; 
and  it  will  profit  nothing  to  show  that  every 
form  of  thinking  involves  some  dim  shade  of 
some  one  among  these  contrasted  meanings. 
But  evidently,  if  my  thesis  is  true,  there  can  be 
no  formal  definition  of  causality ;  for  there  is  no 
wider  genus  under  which  it  can  be  sub-sumed 
as  a  species  with  its  special  differentia. 

But  this  difficulty  is  not  insuperable.  For 
it  will  be  shown  as  we  proceed  that  there  is  but 
one  perfect  type  of  causality;  and  that  all  these 
diverse  meanings  are  but  so  many  phases  or  de- 


2  THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

grees    of   imperfection    evinced    as    we   descend 
from  that  perfect  type. 

SECTION   1.    SUBSTANCE  AND  ATTRIBUTE 

Let  us,  then,  first  take  thinking  in  its  simplest 
form,  i.  e.,  those  perceptive  judgments  which 
connect  things  and  their  qualities.  What  now 
is  the  relation  between  the  qualities  and  the 
thing  qualified?  We  all  know  the  old  answer 
handed  down  from  Aristotle  through  the  ages. 
The  qualities  inhere  in  the  thing  -  -  stick  in 
it,  as  it  were  -  -  like  pins  in  a  pin-cushion. 
Against  this  familiar  but  absurd  view,  I  main- 
tain that  the  real  relation  between  the  thing 
and  its  attributes  is  that  of  cause  and  effect. 
The  thing  is  the  partial  cause  of  its  attri- 
butes. 

Note,  above  all,  the  significance  of  the  limit- 
ing term  -  -  the  partial  cause.  The  first  maxim 
of  modern  science  is  that  no  finite,  sensible  thing 
is  the  complete  cause  of  an  effect.  The  true 
cause  of  any  effect  is  complex ;  many  different 
things  or  agencies  are  woven  together  as  fac- 
tors in  the  causal  process  whence  any  given 
effect  or  change  results.  But  modern  philoso- 
phy has  been  strangely  blind  to  this  axiom  of 
modern  science;  and  this  blindness  has  led  to  a 
virtual  discarding  of  causation  as  a  vague,  am- 
biguous term  useless  in  systematic  thinking. 
"  Cause,"  says  Martineau,  for  instance,  "  ap- 


THE  NATURE  OF  THOUGHT         3 

pears  at  one  time  as  a  thing  or  object  in  space; 
in  another  as  a  prior  phenomenon ;  and  again, 
as  a  definite  force  identical  with  neither.  In 
assigning  the  cause  of  the  daily  tides,  for  ex- 
ample, you  may  name  the  moon  or  the  rotation 
of  the  earth  or  the  gravitation  of  the  related 
masses."  He  does  not  see  that  each  of  these 
is  but  a  partial  cause,  a  factor  in  the  complex 
process  producing  the  tides.  In  like  manner 
Wundt  and  Sigwart  dispute :  the  one  insisting 
that  the  cause  of  every  event  is  some  prior 
event,  the  other  that  substances  also  are  causes.1 
All  such  confusion  and  wrangling  might  have 
been  avoided  by  remembering  that  the  substance 
is  indeed  a  cause,  but  a  partial  one,  a  factor  in 
the  causal  complex  producing  the  attribute. 

Note  further  that  the  thing  or  substance, 
though  only  a  partial  cause,  occupies  a  privi- 
leged and  pre-eminent  position.  For  it  is  the 
only  factor  that  persists,  that  operates  in  one 
and  all  of  the  many  different  processes  by  which 
its  many  attributes  are  severally  produced. 

Again,  it  is  the  specific  factor;  the  other  fac- 
tors are  general  conditions  giving  only  general 
results.  For  example,  the  earth's  attraction  is 
such  a  condition  determining  the  weight  of 
things  in  general.  But  it  is  the  structure  of 
the  thing  itself  which  determines  whether  it 
shall  be  heavy  as  lead  or  light  as  a  leaf.  So 

i  Sigwart:     Logic,   II.     564-74. 


4  THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

with  color:  the  ether-waves  produce  all  manner 
of  colors,  but  the  structure  of  the  thing  deter- 
mines its  specific  color. 

These  considerations  are  enough  to  prove  my 
contention  that  the  relation  of  substance  to  its 
attributes  is  that  of  a  partial  cause  to  many 
effects  produced  under  varying  circumstances. 
And  yet  it  is  but  one  half  of  the  proof.  The 
other  and  more  important  half  consists  in  show- 
ing that  only  this  view  explains  certain  per- 
plexities that  have  long  darkened  the  concep- 
tion of  substance  and  attributes  into  a  midnight 
of  enigma  and  self-contradiction. 

(1)  First    of    all,    consider    the    well-known 
logical   riddle :  if  from  the   substance  we   take 
away  the  attributes  nothing  remains  ;  conversely, 
if  from  the  attributes  we  take  away  the  sub- 
stance, again  we  have  nothing  left ;  thus  sub- 
stance  and   attribute   taken   apart   seem   to  be 
but  two  nothings.     But  the  error  lies  in  regard- 
ing   substance    and    attribute    as    two    distinct 
things.     Rise  above  this  childish  view.     Inter- 
pret substance  and  attribute  in  terms  of  cause 
and  effect.     Then  you  see  at  once  that  a  cause 
which  has  no  effect  is  not  a  cause,  and  that  an 
effect  which  has  no  cause  is  not  an  effect. 

(2)  Another    and    still    graver     opposition 
which  philosophy  has  for  centuries  been  vainly 
striving  to  reconcile  is  that  of  identity  and  di- 
versity.    Hegel  rightly  insisted  that  difference 


THE  NATURE  OF  THOUGHT         5 

was  even  more  essential  to  a  true  concept  or 
universal  than  was  mere  resemblance.2  But  he 
erred  fatally  in  supposing  that  this  union  of 
identity  and  difference  was  self-contradictory. 
He  did  not  see  that  all  thinking  was  a  relating 
of  cause  and  effect.  And  that  the  very  essence 
of  such  a  relation  was  that  it  at  once  differen- 
tiated between  the  cause  and  its  effect,  and  yet 
united  them  by  the  firmest  of  bonds. 

(3)  Another   famous   opposition   is   that   of 
the  One  and  the  Many.     Philosophers  as  wide 
apart   as   Hegel   and   Herbart   agree   that   one 
thing  with  many  qualities  is  a  flagrant  case  of 
self-contradiction.     Bergson  believes   that   this 
difficulty  can  be  overcome  by  rising  above  mere 
intellect  into  the  cloud-land  of  his  sympathetic 
intuition  or  "  Creative  elan."     But  there  is  no 
need  of  these  strange  devices.     Unity  and  mul- 
tiplicity when  interpreted  in  terms  of  cause  and 
effect  are  not  contradictory,  as  we  have  seen ; 
the  one  thing  is  the  central  factor  in  many  dif- 
ferent processes  of  causation,  each  of  which  im- 
parts to  that  thing  a  different  aspect  or  quality. 

(4)  Still  another  opposition  is  that  of  per- 
manence   and    change.     Hegel   would    reconcile 
these  by  abolishing  time.     Bergson,  by  confin- 
ing mere  intellect  to  a  knowledge  of  the  perma- 
nent,  while   "  a   kind   of  intellectual   ausculta- 

2  Bosanquet,   Individuality,   etc.,   devotes   50   pages   to 
this  truth,  pp.  31-81. 


6  THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

tion,"  3  reveals  the  throbbings  of  incessant 
change  or  restless  becoming.  But  for  such  fan- 
cies I  would  substitute  the  simple  fact  that  the 
thought  of  causation  necessarily  involves  both 
permanence  and  change.  The  cause  is  rela- 
tively permanent,  the  effect  relatively  change- 
ful. In  other  words,  the  two  reciprocally 
qualify  each  other;  we  know  the  cause  through 
its  effects  and  conversely  the  effects  through 
their  causes. 

Thus  these  four  phantoms  of  self-contradic- 
tion which  have  so  long  disquieted  the  philo- 
sophic world  seem  to  vanish  in  the  light  of  the 
view  here  maintained.  And  this  is  the  other 
half  of  my  proof  that  the  relation  of  substance 
to  its  attributes  is  that  of  a  partial  cause  to  its 
many  effects. 

SECTION  2.    CONCEPTS 

A  threefold  difficulty  infests  the  problem  of 
concepts  or  universals.  The  first  two  concern 
the  double  meaning  of  the  concept,  its  extension 
and  intension.  The  third  is  the  question, 
handed  down  from  the  Middle  Ages,  whether 
concepts  really  exist,  or  are  but  mere  names. 
And  these  three  inter-tangle  into  a  hard  knot 
which  philosophy  as  yet  has  failed  to  untie. 

Let   us   see,  then,  whether  this  knot   can  be 

3  Bergson:     Introduction    to    Metaphysics,    p.    36. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THOUGHT         7 

untied  by  the  aid  of  our  principle  that  all  think- 
ing is  a  relating  of  cause  and  effect.  A  univer- 
sal, I  hope  to  show,  means  something  more  than 
a  collection  of  individuals  or  a  bundle  of  at- 
tributes or  a  mere  name.  Its  deepest  meaning 
is  a  process  of  causation  producing  uniform  re- 
sults. The  proof  thereof  can  be  given  here 
only  in  outline,  but  still  clearly  enough,  I  trust, 
to  be  convincing.  If  any  reader  should  still 
doubt,  let  him  refer  to  my  Philosophy  of  the 
Future  (pp.  93-112)  where  the  proof  is  given 
in  greater  detail. 

The  primitive  view  of  the  concept  —  a  view 
that  stood  unchallenged  until  a  century  ago  - 
was  crude  and  superficial.  It  saw  in  the  con- 
cept naught  but  a  collection  of  resembling  ob- 
jects. The  extension  expressed  the  objects,  the 
intension  their  resemblance.  But  a  rude  shock 
was  given  to  this  venerable  view  by  Hegel's  in- 
vention of  "  the  concrete  universal."  To  him 
belongs  the  honor  of  being  the  first  European 
to  see  that  the  old  view  of  the  concept  neces- 
sarily involved  universal  self-contradiction. 
To  conceive  anything  was  to  place  it  in  a  col- 
lection of  like  objects.  But  instantly  the 
counter- thought  arose  that  these  objects  were, 
in  many  respects,  not  like  each  other.  Thus 
every  concept  becomes  a  palpable  self-contra- 
diction. Or,  as  that  eminent  Hegelian,  Mc- 
Taggart,  puts  it :  "  But  everything  is,  as  we 


8  THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

have  seen,  Unlike  every  other  thing.  And  it  is 
also  Like  every  other  thing,  for  in  any  possible 
group  we  can,  as  we  have  seen,  find  a  common 
quality.  Thus  under  this  category  everything 
has  exactly  the  same  relation  to  everything 
else.  For  it  is  both  Like  and  Unlike  every- 
thing else."  4 

But  though  Hegel  did  well  in  unveiling  the 
contradictoriness  of  the  concept  as  ordinarily 
construed,  his  substitute  —  the  concrete  univer- 
sal —  can  hardly  be  deemed  a  success.  It  raises 
far  more  difficulties  than  it  removes.  The  true 
solution  is  that  every  relation  of  mere  likeness 
or  difference,  in  order  to  become  self-consistent 
and  intelligible,  must  be  converted  into  a  causal 
relation  by  stating  upon  what  the  likeness  or  the 
unlikeness  depends.  When  the  vague,  inco- 
herent feeling  of  likeness  and  unlikeness  thus 
evolves  into  the  recognition  of  a  causal  relation, 
then  only  does  real  thinking  begin.  In  fine,  a 
concept,  in  its  deepest  meaning,  signifies  a 
causal  process. 

And  strangely  enough,  all  the  great  thinkers 
of  every  school  seem  finally  driven  around  to 
this  view  of  the  concept.  Above  all,  it  was 
Plato's  view.  The  definition  of  the  Platonic 
concept  is,  according  to  Xenocrates :  "  A 
cause  serving  as  the  unchanging  type  of  all 
natural  things."  Hegel  also  says  that  "  the 
4  Commentary  on  Hegel's  Logic,  pp.  112,  113. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THOUGHT         9 

true  universal  is  not  merely  some  common  ele- 
ment in  all  of  that  kind ;  it  is  their  Ground, 
their  Substance."  Lotze  wavers ;  at  first  he 
declares  that  universals  are  valid  but  non- 
existent :  we  are  forced  to  think  them  real  al- 
though we  know  that  they  are  not  real.  But 
in  the  Metaphysics  (§  88)  he  swings  around  to 
the  true  view  and  says :  "  Color  as  the  com- 
mon element  of  various  colors  is  not  a  scientific 
idea  or  concept.  Discovery  of  a  process  of 
light-waves  whose  various  rates  constitute  the 
various  colors  of  the  spectrum  gives  the  con- 
cept." 

Even  such  antagonists  as  Mill  and  Hamilton 
concur  in  yielding  to  this  unconscious  tide  of 
all  deep  thinking.  Hamilton  declares  that  "  in 
considering  aught  as  a  system  or  whole,  we 
think  the  parts  as  held  together  by  a  certain 
force."  And  Mill  extols  this  "  as  one  of  the 
best  and  profoundest  passages  in  all  Sir 
William  Hamilton's  writings."5  (1)  Even 
Hobbes,  at  this  point,  forgets  his  Nominalism; 
"  these  causes  of  names,"  he  says,  "  are  the 
same  with  the  causes  of  our  conceptions,  namely, 
some  power  of  action  or  affection  of  the  thing 
conceived."  6  (2)  Thus  all  the  rival  schools 
seem  somehow  forced  to  concede  that  a  concept 
means  ultimately  a  causal  process. 

s  Mill:     Hamilton's  Philosophy,  II,  p.  67. 
s  Mill:     Logic,  Bk.  1,  chap.  5. 


10  THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

But  there  is  an  oft-urged  objection  which 
threatens  the  very  -:ence  of  the  concept. 
Recently  it  has  been  put  with  great  skill  by 
Bergson :  in  fact,  it  forms  the  centre  and  almost 
the  circumference  of  his  philosophy.  Tne  in- 
herent difficulties  of  Metaph  sic,  its  antinom: 
contradictions,  etc..  he  tells  us.  "  \rise  from 
our  professing  to  reconstruct  reality  with  per- 
cepts whose  function  it  is  to  make  it  stationary. 
But  there  are  no  means  of  reconstructing  the 
mobility  of  the  real  with  fixed  concep"- 
TV  -  ;w  that  concepts,  being  fixed,  changele-  . 
-  \tic.  cannot  express  the  changes  of  reality 
Bergson  expands  into  several -volume-.  But  a 
complete  answer  to  it  can  be  given  in  a  dozen 
lines  or  so.  The  causal  proce  —  -  ^hich  con- 
cepts exp:  —  .  indeed,  absolutely  uniform; 
but  that  by  no  means  necessitates  the  invaria- 
bility of  the  effect  On  the  contrary,  it  is  this 

~y  uniformity  of  the  process  ichich  brings 
about  infinite  variation  in  the  results.  For  ex- 
ample, it  is  the  continuous  action  of  gravity 
which  causes  the  velocity  of  the  falling  stone  to 
vary  in  each  infinitesimal  instant.  So  the 
process  of  causation  that  produces  color  is  one. 
immutable,  will  persist  as  long  as  the  cosmos 
But  the  colors  and  hues  produced  are 
of  countless  variety,  interpenetrate  or  modify 
each  other,  vanish  and  return  —  are  the  perfect 
~  Bergsoo:  Introduction  to  Mefapkyric*.  pp.  67,  69. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THOUGHT       11 

type  of  "  becoming."  In  fine,  concepts  mean 
uniform  processes,  but  their  uniformity  does 
not  result  in  a  static,  changeless,  paralyzed 
world. 

Besides  what  has  already  been  given  there 
are  two  other  lines  of  proof  that  the  gist  of  a 
concept  is  to  indicate  a  causal  process.  One 
line  is  derived  from  the  origin  of  language,  the 
other  from  the  origin  of  science. 

(1)  It  is  a  well  established  principle  in 
philology  that  the  majority  of  verbal  roots  ex- 
press acts  performed  in  a  primitive  state  of 
society  —  such  as  digging,  plaiting,  weaving, 
binding,  etc.  Further  they  are  generally  co- 
operative acts :  for  only  thus  would  they  become 
known  to  all  and  only  thus  could  their  merely 
accidental  elements  be  eliminated.  Still  more 
significant  is  Miillers  statement  that  "  the  mere 
consciousness  of  these  acts  is  not  enough :  onlv 

» 

when  the  processes  are  such  that  their  results 
remain  perceptible  —  for  example,  in  the  hole 
dug.  in  the  tree  struck  down,  in  the  reeds  tied 
together  as  a  mat  —  do  men  reach  conceptual 
thoughts  in  language/' 

Or  as  another  eminent  philologist.  Noire,  has 
said:  "  The  conception  of  causality  subsisting 
bcticccn  tilings.  Verily  this  constitutes  such  a 
simple,  plain  and  convincing  means  of  distin- 

sLtcturti>  on   the   Scitnct  of  Thought;  30. 


THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

guishing  the  logos,  human  reason  from  animal 
intelligence,  it  seems  inconceivable  that  this 
manifest  and  clear  boundary-line  should  not 
long  ago  have  been  noted  and  established  as 
such."  9 

Philology,  then,  confirms  my  thesis.  Every 
word  used  in  human  speech  has  had  its  origin 
in  the  effort  of  primitive  man  to  express  those 
causal  processes  which  he  perceives  in  Nature 
or  which  he  himself  executes  in  common  with 
his  fellows. 

(2)  Still  more  conclusive  is  the  testimony 
presented  by  man's  prolonged  effort  to  classify 
natural  things.  At  a  very  early  period,  savage 
man  had  succeeded  in  classifying  living  things 
into  their  species  or  lowest  kinds.  But  the 
inorganic  things  went  unclassified.  Even  at  the 
climax  of  ancient  civilization,  so  great  a  genius 
as  Aristotle  could  divide  them  only  into  these 
four  absurd  kinds :  "  the  hot  and  dry,  the  hot 
and  wet,  the  cold  and  dry,  the  cold  and  wet." 
The  reason  is  obvious.  In  the  organic  realm, 
the  processes  of  production  were  perceptible ; 
in  the  inorganic,  they  were  hidden. 

Furthermore,  ancient  classification,  even  of 
the  organic,  never  reached  beyond  species. 
Until  three  centuries  ago  botanists  knew  of  no 
grand  divisions  in  the  plant-world  except 
"  trees,  shrubs  and  herbs."  But  light  dawned 

9  Origin  of  language,  p.  42. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THOUGHT       13 

at  last  when  Gessner  discovered  that  true 
genera  could  be  formed  by  noting  characteris- 
tics drawn  from  the  process  of  fructification. 
Since  then,  as  Darwin  has  said,  "  naturalists  in 
their  long  search  for  a  true  or  natural  system 
of  classification '  have  always  been  uncon- 
sciously guided,  not  by  mere  resemblances,  but 
by  the  principle  of  inheritance."  But  the 
principle  of  inheritance  is  but  another  phrase 
for  process  of  production.  Thus  the  develop- 
ment of  science  adds  another  to  our  proofs  that 
a  concept  means  something  more  than  an  imag- 
inary collection  of  resembling  objects.  In  its 
deepest,  widest  meaning,  the  concept  signifies 
the  causal  process  which  produces  both  the 
individuals  and  their  attributes. 

And  under  the  guidance  of  this  same  princi- 
ple, Darwin  himself  was  led  to  that  sublime 
discovery  which  has  revolutionized  modern 
thought. 

(3)  Finally,  this  view  gives  answer  to  a  ques- 
tion that  has  baffled  the  ages.  Do  universals 
really  exist  or  are  they  only  figments  of  mind? 
I  answer  that  if  they  do  not  exist,  then  nothing 
exists.  True,  we  do  not  perceive  the  entirety 
of  any  causal  process.  We  perceive  only  its 
component  factors.  The  causal  bond  or  force 
that  weaves  these  components  into  one  invari- 
able process  is  unseen,  and  therefore  has  to  be 
10  Origin  of  Species,  ch.  14. 


14  THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

inferred  by  thought.  Do  you  object  that  this 
bond  may  be  only  an  idle  dream,  a  fiction  of  the 
mind?  That  indeed  is  a  difficulty  before  which 
all  philosophy  heretofore  has  stood  perplexed 
and  powerless.  But  if  I  can  prove  that  the 
sole  essential  function  of  thinking  in  all  its  forms 
is  to  affirm  causation,  then  plainly  to  deny 
causation  is  to  make  all  thinking  essentially 
false.  In  fine,  such  a  denial  would  logically  in- 
volve the  complete  collapse  and  extinction  of 
thought.  And  thus  I  leave  the  matter  for  the 
present. 

SECTION  III.     INDUCTION 

Logicians  have  long  been  very  much  at  vari- 
ance concerning  the  real  nature  of  inductive 
thinking.  To  avoid  their  disputes,  let  us  con- 
fine ourselves  to  historical  facts  -  -  to  a  brief 
glance  at  some  of  the  chief  discoveries  or  induc- 
tions which  have  created  modern  science.  It 
will  thus  be  shown,  I  think,  that  all  these  great 
inductions  have  consisted  essentially  in  the  un- 
veiling of  some  hidden  or  neglected  factor  in 
the  causal  processes  of  Nature. 

(1)  Consider  the  two  chief  inductions  that 
gave  birth  to  modern  astronomy,  (a)  It  had 
long  been  known  that  the  rapid  motion  of  the 
spectator  would  make  stationary  objects  seem 
to  move.  But  Copernicus  revolutionized  as- 
tronomy by  proving  that  this  simple  fact  was 


THE  NATURE  OF  THOUGHT       15 

the  neglected  factor  in  all  previous  views  of  the 
celestial  mechanism,  (b)  Newton's  induction 
was  still  more  sublime ;  for  he  unveiled  a  factor 
that  had  been  not  merely  neglected,  but  one  so 
deeply  hidden  that  no  one  had  dreamed  of  its 
existence. 

(2)  The   creation   of  optical   science   is   an- 
other proof  of  my  thesis.     Here  the  paramount 
factor  —  refraction  -   -  had  long  been  known  as 
a  strange  illusion,  a  freak  of  nature  that  made 
the  straight  seem  bent.      But  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  Snell  began  an  inductive  study  of  this 
illusive  phenomenon.     He  discovered  the  mathe- 
matical law  governing  its  seeming  irregularities. 
Very   soon   refraction,   so   long   neglected,   was 
seen  to  be  the  central  factor  in  optical  proc- 
esses.    From     Snell's     formula    Descartes     ex- 
plained, in  part  at  least,  the  splendid  mystery 
of  the  rainbow.     Then  came  Newton  with  his 
explanation  of  colors  as  due  to  different  degrees 
of  refrangibility :  a  new  science  had  been  born. 

(3)  In  acoustics  even  Newton  failed  in  his 
induction ;    his    calculation    of    the    velocity    of 
sound  made  it  much  less  than  it  really  was.      So 
acoustics  was  at  a  stand-still  for  almost  a  cen- 
tury.    But  at  last  La  Place  showed  that  here, 
too,  there  was  a  neglected  factor.     By  the  sud- 
den compression  of  the  air,  heat  was  generated, 
and  thus  the  wave-motion  was  greatly  acceler- 
ated.    Due  allowance  being  made  for  this,  the 


16          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

calculated  and  observed  velocities  corresponded, 
and  acoustics  became  an  inductive  science. 

(4)  The  creation  of  chemical  science  is  an- 
other proof  that  induction  is  an  unveiling  of 
the  essential  factors  in  a  causal  process.     And 
strangely  enough,  the  neglected  factor  here  was 
the    most    potent    and    widely    diffused    of    all 
chemical     agencies,     to     wit,     the     atmosphere. 
Even  in  the  Middle  Ages  many  skillful  experi- 
ments came  to  naught  and  many  brilliant  dis- 
coveries were  nipped  in  the  bud  by  the  failure 
to  take  account  of  the  atmosphere  or  its  chief 
constituent.      Even  in  modern  times,  after  oxy- 
gen had  been  actually  discovered,  very  little  at- 
tention was  paid  to  it  for  more  than  a  century ; 
its   place   was    taken   by   the   absurd   fiction   of 
phlogiston  with  its  "  negative  weight."      But  at 
last  Lavoisier  brought  into  full  view  the  long 
neglected     factor  —  -  the    omnipresent    oxygen ; 
the    mythical    phlogiston    was    forgotten,    and 
chemistry  became  a  true  science. 

(5)  The  history  of  biology  is  another  crucial 
test  of  my  thesis.     In  the  seventeenth  century, 
Leuwenhoek  with  his  crude  magnifying  glasses 
made  animalculse  visible.      Thus  the  very  units 
of    life    were    laid    bare    to    human    inspection. 
And  yet  for  almost  two  hundred  years  little  at- 
tention was  paid  to  this  new  revelation.     A  few 
years  ago,  however,  Pasteur  and  others  began 
to  seriously  study  these  neglected  factors  in  the 


THE  NATURE  OF  THOUGHT       17 

process  of  life.  The  swift  result  has  been  an 
almost  complete  transformation  of  both  biology 
and  medicine.  One  of  the  most  eminent  of 
biologists  tells  us  that  only  as  inquiry  has 
turned  from  the  highest  organisms  to  study  in 
the  lowest  the  process  of  life  in  the  concrete 
has  biology  in  theory  and  practice  made  much 
progress. 

Such,  then,  is  my  proof  that  scientific  induc- 
tion is,  primarily,  a  search  for  the  essential 
factors  in  a  causal  process.  Note  further,  that 
logicians  in  treating  of  induction  have  been  ac- 
customed to  select  arbitrarily  out  of  the  im- 
mensity of  scientific  research  a  few  special  in- 
stances that  happen  to  suit  their  theories.  But 
my  proof  has  been  drawn,  not  from  selected 
fragments,  but  from  the  whole  —  from  the  en- 
tire course  of  scientific  development.  Each 
science  has  been  shown  to  owe  its  origin  and 
growth  to  the  unveiling  of  some  deep-hidden 
factor  or  factors  essential  to  the  perfection  of 
that  science. 

SECTION  IV.     DEDUCTION 

The  type  of  deduction  is  geometry.  A  geo- 
metric demonstration  is  the  linking  together  of 
many  inductions,  each  so  simple  that  its  validity 
is  assured  at  a  glance.  When,  e.  g.,  a  straight 
line  is  drawn  to  a  point  upon  another  line,  you 
recognize  that  the  sum  of  the  two  angles  thus 


18          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

formed  will  be  equal  to  two  right  angles,  not 
only  in  this  particular  case,  but  universally. 
For  you  see  that  any  imaginable  change  in  the 
position  or  direction  of  the  two  lines  would 
leave  the  sum  of  the  two  angles  unaltered ;  what 
was  taken  from  the  one  would  be  added  to  the 
other. 

It  is  this  swift,  almost  unconscious  transition 
from  the  particular  to  the  universal  that  forms 
the  essence  —  the  very  soul  and  life  —  of  a 
geometric  demonstration.  The  rest  is  a  mere 
task  of  construction,  an  ingenious  fitting  to- 
gether of  many  inductions  until  you  attain  the 
desired  result.  But  without  .  this  incessant 
transformation  of  each  particular  inference 
into  a  universal  one,  your  proof  would  be 
valid  only  for  the  one  little  figure  given  in  the 
diagram. 

Especially  the  final  demonstrations  in  geome- 
try, dependent  as  they  are  for  their  proof  upon 
many  preceding  ones,  are  made  up  of  hundreds 
of  minute  inductions,  as  an  organism  is  made 
up  of  living  cells. 

Concerning  the  syllogism  little  need  be  said. 
The  conclusion  is  but  the  abbreviated  union  of 
two  premises  both  of  which  are  of  inductive 
origin.  All  the  really  difficult  and  valuable 
work  of  syllogistic  reasoning  lies  in  the  forma- 
tion and  verifying  of  the  two  premises ;  the  put- 
ting of  them  together  in  the  shape  of  a  syllo- 


THE  NATURE  OF  THOUGHT       19 

gism  is  almost  as  much  a  mechanical  task  as  the 
nailing  together  of  two  boards. 

But  it  may  be  objected  that  if  geometry  is 
the  type  of  deduction,  then  there  is  at  least  one 
form  of  thinking  that  does  not  consist  in  a  re- 
lating of  cause  and  effect.  For  mathematical 
science  deals  only  with  the  eternal  and  im- 
mutable, and  therefore  can  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  changes  of  causality.  But  that,  I 
think,  is  a  very  great  error.  In  the  concep- 
tion of  a  right-angled  triangle,  for  instance, 
there  is  the  possibility  of  an  infinite  host  of 
changes  in  the  length  of  the  two  sides.  And 
is  it  not  geometry's  task  to  tell  exactly  what 
change  in  the  length  of  the  hypothenuse  will  be 
caused  by  any  one  of  these  possible  changes  in 
the  sides? 

Deduction,  then,  forms  no  exception  to  my 
law  that  all  thinking  is  a  relating  of  cause  and 
effect. 

SECTION  V.     SPACE 

Another  proof  of  my  thesis  is  that  it  explains 
the  perplexities  involved  in  the  idea  of  space. 
For  these  perplexities  vanish  when  we  think  of 
space  as  the  nature  of  thought  demands  -  -  that 
is,  in  terms  of  cause  and  effect. 

The  whole  difficulty  seems  to  have  focalized 
upon  an  alleged  antagonism  between  perceptual 
and  conceptual  space  as  contradictory  of  each 


20  THE  SOIJL'S  EXISTENCE 

other.  Kant,  in  his  "  Critique  of  Judgment ' 
first  suggested  this  opposition ;  and  others  have 
since  laid  a  much  greater  stress  upon  it.  But  it 
is,  I  think,  all  a  delusion.  What  has  been  er- 
roneously regarded  as  a  distinction  between 
conceived  and  perceived  space  is  really  a  dis- 
tinction between  space  and  the  spatial  relations 
of  things.  And  the  two  so  far  from  being  an- 
tagonistic or  contradictory  to  each  other  are 
really  related  as  cause  and  effect. 

Mark  that  I  do  not  say  that  space  is  the  sole 
or  entire  cause  of  the  spatial  relations  of  things 
such  as  distance,  direction,  etc.  The  cause  is 
complex.  Unchanging  space  is.  one  indispens- 
able factor  in  the  production  of  spatial  rela- 
tions ;  perceptible  things  are  another. 

Do  you  object  that  space  is  inactive  and 
therefore  cannot  be  a  factor  in  causal  processes? 
Lotze  especially  insisted  upon  this  as  his  main 
reason  for  denying  the  reality  of  space ;  the 
essence  of  anything,  he  argued,  consists  in  its 
behavior,  what  it  does ;  and  since  space  does 
nothing,  it  is  nothing.  But  a  distinguished 
disciple  of  Lotze  provides  me  with  an  all-suffi- 
cient answer  to  that.  He  says :  "  A  medium 
or  instrument  may  be  perfect  just  in  proportion 
as  it  is  inert,  neither  increasing  nor  diminishing, 
nor  in  any  way  modifying  what  is  transmitted 
or  effected  through  it." 

11  Ward:     Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,   II,  p.   240. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THOUGHT 

But  there  is  another  perplexity.  How  do 
we  know  that  space  is  absolutely  continuous, 
indivisible  into  parts  ?  We  cannot  perceive  — 
see  with  our  eyes  or  feel  with  our  fingers  -  -  that 
there  are  no  crevices  or  holes  in  it.  Nor  can 
we  appeal  to  common  sense.  For  common  sense, 
although  more  truthful  than  the  academic  con- 
ceit of  wisdom  which  scorns  it,  is  yet  not  infalli- 
ble. The  true  answer,  I  think,  is  this.  Para- 
mount among  spatial  relations  are  those  of 
distance  or  the  separateness  of  things.  But 
what  is  meant  by  this  separateness  of  things  is 
that  there  is  space  between  them.  If  there  is 
no  space  between  them  they  are  not  separate. 
Therefore  it  is  absurd  to  think  of  space  itself  as 
divisible  into  parts.  For  in  order  that  the 
parts  should  be  separate  there  would  have  to  be 
space  between  them,  and  consequently  no  sepa- 
ration of  the  parts.  Or,  to  put  it  more  simply : 
if  space  could  be  divided,  what  then  would  sepa- 
rate the  parts? 

But  on  the  other  hand,  the  spatial  relations 
of  things  are  perceptibly  divisible.  The  reason 
is  that  spatial  relations  are  effects  of  space  and 
things  combined  ;  and  as  thus  partially  produced 
by  things  they  derive  from  them  their  character- 
istic of  divisibility.  But  philosophers  have 
transferred  this  divisibility  to  space  itself,  to 
which  it  cannot  possibly  belong. 

Again,  Kant  presents  it  as  one  of  the  main 


THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

difficulties  in  the  space  question  that  space  and 
spatial  properties  of  things  although  so  closely 
united  are  yet  very  different.  How  could  it  be 
otherwise?  For  space,  as  we  have  now  seen,  is 
related  to  these  spatial  properties  as  a  partial 
cause  to  its  effects.  And  the  crowning  mark  of 
every  causal  relation  is  that  it  at  once  differ- 
entiates the  cause  from  the  effect  and  yet  unites 
them  by  the  firmest  of  all  bonds. 

There  is  no  room  here  to  discuss  some  minor 
difficulties,  but  enough  has  been  said,  I  think,  to 
show  that  to  think  clearly  and  consistently 
about  spatial  relations,  we  must  think  of  them 
as  effects  conjointly  caused  .by  space  and 
things. 

SECTION  VI.    TIME 

The  time-problem  furnishes  another  proof 
that  thinking  is,  fundamentally,  a  relating  of 
cause  and  effect.  It  will  be  shown  that  time  is 
not  a  mere  sum  of  parts  or  so-called  periods  of 
time.  On  the  contrary,  time  is  a  partial  cause, 
the  periods  are  its  effects.  And  it  is  the  failure 
to  thus  distinguish  between  the  cause  and  its 
effects  -  -  between  time  and  temporal  relations 
-  that  has  given  rise  to  the  enigmas  and  seem- 
ing contradictions  that  have  so  perplexed 
philosophy. 

(1)  Consider  the  chief  perplexity  of  all,  that 
concerning  past,  present  and  future.  The 


THE  NATURE  OF  THOUGHT       23 

present,  it  is  said,  has  no  duration;  make  it  as 
short  as  you  can,  it  is  still  capable  of  being 
divided  into  a  before  and  after  -  -  a  past  and  a 
future ;  the  present  is  but  the  plane  which  with- 
out thickness  separates  the  other  two.  So  far 
as  duration  is  concerned,  the  present  is  zero ; 
but  the  past  has  ceased  to  exist  and  the  future 
is  not  yet.  Time,  therefore,  is  but  the  sum  of 
three  zeros  or  non-existents. 

I  answer  that  time  is  one  and  indivisible. 
The  proof  thereof,  like  the  proof  of  the  indi- 
visibility of  space,  lies  in  the  simple  question : 
If  time  can  be  divided  into  parts,  what  is  it  that 
separates  the  parts?  Certainly  the  division 
could  not  be  either  space  or  things.  Imagine 
two  parts  of  time,  one  on  one  side,  the  other  on 
the  other  side  of  a  spatial  point  or  line !  Nor 
could  the  division  be  another  part  of  time ;  for 
then  there  would  be  no  separation,  but  con- 
tinuous, indivisible  duration. 

(2)  But  are  temporal  relations,  then,  min- 
utes, days,  years,  etc.,  merely  subjective, —  fic- 
tions of  the  mind?  By  no  means.  Temporal 
relations  are  the  products  of  enduring  things 
conjoined  with  eternal,  indivisible  time.  The 
relations  or  periods  are  plainly  given  in  immedi- 
ate experience.  So  are  the  enduring  things. 
Time  as  one,  limitless,  indivisible,  is  indeed  an 
inference;  but  in  thus  inferring,  thought  adds 
nothing  merely  subjective  or  illusory.  It  sim- 


THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

ply  interprets  the  given  in  terms  of  cause  and 
effect. 

(3)  But  it  is  impossible,  you  urge,  that  two 
factors  so  different  as  time  and  material  things 
should  co-operate  in  the  same  causal  process. 
Precisely   the   same   objection   might   be   urged 
against  my  theory  of  space ;  but  for  brevity's 
sake,    I   have   deferred    noticing   it    until    now. 
And   I   now  answer   that   this   parallelistic   as- 
sumption is  sheer  nonsense.     It  is  the  very  es- 
sence of  all  causal  processes  that  factors  of  the 
utmost  diversity  should  combine  in  one  complex 
interaction.     And  the  greater  the  diversity,  the 
vaster  the  results  achieved.    'Even  the  parallel- 
ist  admits  that  the  factors  may  differ  in  quan- 
tity.    Why  not,  then,  in  quality? 

(4)  A  more  plausible  objection  may  be  urged 
that  my  theory  of  time  leaves  it  vague  and  unde- 
fined,  a    sort    of   unknowable   cause,    after   the 
style   of  the  Kantian   "  thing  in   itself."     But 
causes,    as   we   have    seen,   can   be   known   only 
through   their   effects ;   and   conversely,    effects 
through  their  causes.     Hence  time  is  the  best 
known  of  all  objects;  for  it  is  linked  with   a 
vaster  range  of  effects.      Space  is  a  cause  only 
within    the    physical    realm ;    time    in    both    the 
physical     and    psychic     realms.     Furthermore, 
time  can  be  proved  to  be  indivisible  and  infinite. 
Surely,    then,    it    is    very    far    from    being   un- 
knowable. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THOUGHT       25 

(5)  But  what  is  the  proof,  it  may  be  asked, 
of  time's  infinitude?     I  answer,  if  time  is  finite 
it  must  be  limited  by  something.      But  nothing 
can  exist  without  time  to  exist  in.      Therefore 
whatever  puts  an  end  to  time  would  put  an  end 
to  itself,  and  so  there  would  be  no  limit. 

(6)  Another  objection  to  time's  reality  is  its 
unpicturability.      "  As   has   often  been   pointed 
out,  all  our  representations  of  time  are  images 
borrowed  from  space,  and  all  alike  contain  con- 
tradictions  of  the  time  idea.      We  think  of  it 
as  an  endless  straight  line,  but  the  conception 
fails  to  fit ;  for  the  points  of  such  a  line  co-exist, 
wrhile   of   the   time-line   only    the   present   point 
exists."     Recently,  Bergson  has  made  this  an- 
cient dilemma  the  corner-stone  of  a  new  philoso- 
phy   just    now    commanding    much    attention. 
Time    as    conceived   by   the   mere    intellect,    he 
argues,    is    virtually    identical    with    space.      I 
answer  that  time  and  space  do  indeed  agree  in 
this,  that  they  both  are  unpicturable.     We  can 
picture  or  form  a  memory-image  only  of  what 
has    been   perceived.     Now,   neither   space   nor 
time    are    perceived,    but    thought    infers    them 
from  the  spatial  and  temporal  relations  that  are 
perceived.     But,    I    repeat,    in    thus    inferring, 
thought  adds  nothing  illusory :  it  simply  inter- 
prets  the   given   in   terms   of   cause   and   effect. 
And  thus  it  discovers,  without  the  aid  of  any 
intuition,  that  pure  space  and  pure  time  must 


26          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

be  essentially  different.  For  since  the  effects, 
e.  g.,  distances  and  hours,  are  manifestly  dif- 
ferent, their  causes,  space  and  time,  must  be 
essentially  different.  In  fine,  the  brilliant 
imagination  of  Bergson  has  over-reached  itself. 
No  wealth  of  metaphors  will  enable  him  to  pic- 
ture what  is  manifestly  unpicturable. 

(7)  But  there  still  remains  one  possible  ob- 
jection of  great  importance.  It  may  be  urged 
that  throughout  the  chapter  I  have  miscon- 
strued the  nature  of  causation,  that  it  really 
means  nothing  more  than  uniform  sequence. 
But  against  that  criticism  the  present  section 
provides  an  impregnable  defense.  For  it  shows 
that  sequence,  so  far  from  being  a  substitute 
for  causation,  is  itself  absolutely  inexplicable 
unless  it  is  interpreted  in  terms  of  cause  and 
effect. 

We  have  now  examined  all  the  grand  divisions 
of  thinking  —  perceptive  judgment,  concep- 
tion, induction,  deduction,  affirmation  of  space 
and  of  time.  And  we  have  found  them  all  re- 
ducible to  one  essential  function,  to  wit,  the 
interpretation  of  the  given  in  terms  of  cause 
and  effect. 

(1)  Thus  Hume's  famous  problem  which,  ac- 
cording to  Hoffding,  "  Kant  failed  to  solve  and 
is  indeed  insoluble,"  has  finally  been  solved. 
Hume  asserted  that  causation  was  only  a  regu- 


THE  NATURE  OF  THOUGHT       27 

lar  succession  of  phenomena  in  space  and  time. 
But  I  have  proved  that  each  word  in  his  defini- 
tion is,  in  its  essence,  a  declaration  of  causality. 
Eliminate  causation  and  each  word  would  lose 
all  its  meaning.  Thus  in  the  very  act  of  deny- 
ing causality,  Hume  is  forced  to  affirm  it  over 
and  over  again. 

(2)  My  argument  is,  in  fact,  a  reductio  ad 
absurdum   in   the   completest    form   imaginable. 
The  geometer  proves  his   theorem  by  showing 
that  its  denial  would  involve  the  denial  of  some 
universally  accepted  principle.     My  theorem  is 
proved  by  showing  that  its  denial  would  invali- 
date all  judgments,   efface  all  distinctions,   in 
fine,    would    involve    the    utter    extinction    of 
thought. 

(3)  And  even  if  you  are  willing  to  accept  this 
utter  invalidity  of  all  thinking,  there  is  still  an 
answer  for  you.     For  if  all  our  judgments  are 
false,    then    this    particular   judgment,    to   wit, 
that   all  our  judgments  are  false,  must  be  as 
false  as  all  the  rest. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  PERFECT  CAUSE 

SECTION   I.     THE   AMBIGUITY  OF  CAUSATION 

As  promised  at  the  beginning  of  Chapter  I, 
we  have  now  to  consider  the  ambiguities  that 
seem  to  infest  the  term  "  cause  '  as  commonly 
used.  And  first  of  all,  let  us  remember,  wrhat  is 
so  often  forgotten,  that  no  effect  is  the  product 
solely  of  a  single  cause,  but  of  a  complex  of 
many  co-operating  causes.  Each  one  of  these 
factors,  then,  is  but  an  incomplete  or  partial 
cause.  Even  the  sum  of  them  all  would  not  be 
a  complete  cause,  for  their  conjunction  and 
co-operation  would  still  have  to  be  accounted 
for. 

It  is  folly,  then,  to  conceive  the  imperfect 
and  partial  as  if  they  were  complete  causes,  and 
then  bemoan  the  ambiguity  of  causation.  To 
comprehend  any  concept  aright  we  must  con- 
ceive it  in  its  perfected  type.  If  it  appears 
also  in  imperfect  forms,  we  can  descend  to  these 
by  pointing  out  the  defects  which  distinguish 
them  from  the  perfect  type.  But  the  course 

can  never  be  reversed.     The  deficiencies  of  the 

28 


THE  PERFECT  CAUSE  29 

lower  will  give  no  insight  into  the  perfection  of 
the  higher.  A  river  can  rise  no  higher  than 
its  source.  There  are,  then,  not  different  kinds 
but  only  different  degrees  of  perfection  in 
causality.  At  the  summit  of  the  scale  we  find 
the  perfect  type,  the  complete,  self-sufficient 
Cause,  the  chief  characteristics  of  which  are 
to  be  described  and  proved  in  this  chapter. 
Thence  there  is  a  continuous  declension  into 
lower  degrees  or  imperfect  types.  The  highest 
of  these  known  to  us  is  the  causality  of  the 
human  spirit,  akin  to  that  of  God,  but  limited 
to  action  upon  its  own  body ;  its  freedom  ham- 
pered by  the  instincts  of  the  flesh ;  its  ration- 
ality restricted  by  the  limitations  of  sense. 
Next  below  comes  the  organic  world,  wherein 
causality  has  shrunk  to  a  self-determination 
which  Hegel  and  others  have  confounded  with 
true  human  freedom,  and  where  rationality  has 
faded  away  into  a  merely  automatic  association 
of  similarities.  Then  comes  the  inorganic 
world,  ruled  by  uniform  but  inscrutable  forces. 
In  fine,  the  present  philosophic  bewilderment 
is  largely  due  to  beginning  the  study  of  caus- 
ation at  the  wrong  end.  How  can  we  expect 
to  learn  the  real  nature  of  anything,  if  we  con- 
fine our  study  of  it  to  its  imperfections,  its  most 
imperfect  and  obscurest  types?  More  than 
two  thousand  years  ago,  Aristotle  saw  the  folly 
of  such  a  method  as  that.  He  said :  "  By  the 


30  THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

concept  of  the  straight  we  discover  both  the 
straight  and  the  crooked ;  the  rule  is  the  test  of 
both,  while  the  crooked  is  not  a  test  either  of 
itself  or  the  straight."  That  precisely  out- 
lines the  method  I  shall  follow.  To  know  the 
human  soul  we  must  start  from  some  insight 
into  the  nature  of  a  Perfect  Cause.  Nothing 
can  be  comprehended  if  it  is  conceived  only  in 
its  most  imperfect  types.  The  crooked  is  not 
a  test  either  of  itself  or  the  straight. 

SECTION  II.    INFINITUDE 

We  have  proved  that  thought  cannot  deny 
the  reality  of  causation  without  destroying  it- 
self. The  question  now  before  us  is  simply 
this :  What  are  the  main  characteristics  of  a 
perfect  or  complete  and  self-sufficient  cause?  I 
answer,  first,  that  one  essential  of  such  a  cause 
is  infinitude.  For  whatever  is  finite  is  limited  by 
something  else,  and  therefore  must  be,  to  that 
extent,  an  effect ;  it  may  also  be  a  partial  cause 
or  factor  in  a  causal  process,  but  never  a  com- 
plete, self-sufficient  cause.  Now  this  proof, 
though  given  in  a  few  words,  seems  clear  and 
incontrovertable.  But  there  are  objections  to 
be  met. 

First,  Sir  William  Hamilton  and  others  in- 
sist that  "  The  Infinite  '  is  a  merely  negative 
and  therefore  an  inconceivable  and  unknowable 
notion.  And  that  is  true  enough  so  far  as 


THE  PERFECT  CAUSE  31 

"  The  Infinite  ' '  is  concerned ;  nothing  could  be 
more  utterly  blank  and  void  than  that.  But 
substitute  for  this  senseless  abstraction  the  no- 
tion of  The  Infinite  Cause,  and  how  great  is  the 
change !  For  causality  is  not  abstract,  but 
concrete  and  positive  —  the  one  reality  which 
all  true  thinking  is  bent  upon  discovering. 
And  the  adjective  "  infinite  '  added  to  it,  in- 
stead of  negating  it,  expands  it ;  makes  it  more 
glorious  and  sublime. 

The  second  objection,  as  McTaggart  puts 
it,  is :  "  If  God  is  omnipotent,  why  could  He 
not  attain  his  ends  without  the  use  of  any  inter- 
vening means  ?  ' 

I  answer  that  so  far  as  God  himself  was  con- 
cerned, He  had  no  need  of  these  intermediaries. 
For  the  infinite  has  need  of  nothing.  But  one 
of  his  ends  manifestly  was  the  creation  of  finite 
beings  able  to  think  and  to  advance  in  knowl- 
edge. But  such  knowledge  would  be  impossible 
in  a  universe  where  there  were  no  uniform  proc- 
esses, no  means  of  linking  together  the  innumer- 
able parts  into  a  consistent  whole. 

SECTION  III.     UNITY 

The  second  elemental  feature  of  a  complete 
or  self-sufficient  cause  is  Unity.  We  perceive 
in  Nature  a  vast  variety  of  causal  processes 

1  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  p.  201. 


THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

each  containing  many  factors.  But  the  greater 
the  multiplicity  of  these  co-operating  factors, 
the  greater  the  demand  for  some  self-sufficient 
cause  binding  the  many  factors  into  one  process, 
and  all  processes  into  one  cosmic  system.  And 
here  we  are  at  once  confronted  by  that  age-long 
dispute  concerning  "  The  One  and  the  Many," 
which  Prof.  Ward  avers  is  to  be  the  problem  of 
the  present  century.  But  what  was  said,  in  the 
previous  section,  concerning  "  The  Infinite ' 
applies  here  also.  "  The  One  and  the  Many  ' 
interpreted  as  the  nature  of  thought  demands 
—  in  terms  of  cause  and  effect  —  becomes  the 
clear,  consistent  conception,  One  Cause  of 
Many  Effects.  Before  that  view  the  old  per- 
plexities vanish.  For  instance,  Ward  says  that 
"  to  the  One  so  transcendently  different  from 
all  that  we  know,  none  of  our  concepts  are  ap- 
plicable." On  the  contrary,  the  supreme  con- 
cept which,  dome-like,  over-arches  all  human 
thinking,  namely,  that  of  the  Perfect  Cause,  is 
the  concept  which  clearly  and  fully  expresses 
the  meaning  of  "  The  One,"  properly  under- 
stood. 

Or  again,  Hoffding  argues  that  "  our  con- 
cept of  cause  is  a  concept  of  plurality  of  condi- 
tions, so  that  a  cause  cannot  be  an  absolute 
unity."  But  that  annuls  all  causality  by  re- 
ducing it  to  an  endless  series  of  effects  which 


THE  PERFECT  CAUSE  33 

have  no  cause.  Indeed,  Hoffding  admits  this : 
both  in  his  "  History  of  Philosophy  '  and  his 
"  Philosophy  of  Religion '  he  declares  that 
"  we  shall  never  be  able  to  solve  Hume's  problem 
as  to  the  validity  of  the  principle  of  causation." 

And  this  effacement  of  causality  is  also  the 
tap-root  of  Hegelianism.  Bradley,  e.  g.,  ar- 
gues at  great  length  that  all  phases  of  finite 
being  are  false  appearances,  because  they  in- 
volve the  self-contradiction  of  unity  and  diver- 
sity. But  when  this  unity  and  diversity  is 
interpreted  causally  —  that  is,  as  one  cause  of 
many  effects  —  the  contradiction  vanishes. 
For  the  essence  of  the  causal  relation  is  to  dif- 
ferentiate and  at  the  same  time  unite  by  the 
firmest  of  bonds. 

The  causal  processes  of  Nature  are  complexes 
of  many  factors.  And  each  one  of  these  fac- 
tors is  but  an  imperfect  cause  performing  a  task 
that  by  itself  is  absolutely  inexplicable.  Even 
Hoffding  concedes  that  "  strictly  speaking,  not 
a  single  event  has  been  entirely  explained." 
And  this  invariable  co-operation  of  countless 
myriads  of  unconscious  factors  can  never  be 
made  intelligible  until  we  rise  to  the  conception 
of  that  One  Perfect  Cause  that  planned,  es- 
tablished and  maintains  it  all. 

Such  then  is  the  simple  proof  of  unity : 
(1)  Without  a  perfect  or  complete  cause  there 


34          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

would  be  no  causation  at  all ;  but  that  is  impos- 
sible. (£)  To  split  up  this  one,  perfect  cause 
into  many  imperfect  ones,  is  to  destroy  it. 

From  the  earliest  ages,  all  unspoiled  intelli- 
gence has  had  a  glimpse  of  this  great  truth. 
Thousands  of  years  ago,  the  Egyptians  pro- 
claimed it  in  their  hymn  to  Amon-Ra :  "  The 
one,  Maker  of  all  that  is ;  the  only  One,  the 
Maker  of  Existence." 

SECTION  IV.     FREEDOM  AND  RATIONALITY 

The  third  characteristic  of  a  perfect  or  self- 
sufficient  cause  is  freedom.  That,  of  course,  is 
tautological.  Still  it  must  not  be  forgotten ; 
for  it  will  prove  of  great  value  to  us  when  we 
come  to  treat  of  human  freedom. 

The  fourth  characteristic  is  rationality.  My 
proof  here  consists  largely  in  rectifying  the  old 
argument  from  design.  The  fault  of  the  old 
argument  was  that  it  attempted  too  much. 
From  the  order  and  conformity  to  aims  ex- 
hibited in  the  world,  it  sought  to  prove  the 
existence  of  an  omnipotent  God.  But  Kant 
found  it  very  easy  to  show  that  "  this  argument 
is  utterly  insufficient  for  the  task  before  us  -  -  a 
demonstration  of  the  existence  of  an  all-suffi- 
cient being."  2  My  course,  however,  has  been 
very  different.  First  it  was  proved  that  causa- 

2  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  pp.  466,  467. 


THE  PERFECT  CAUSE  35 

tion  was  real,  and  that  this  involved  the  reality 
of  a  perfect  or  complete  cause  —  not  an  infinite 
regress  of  incomplete  causes.  Then  it  was 
shown  that  this  perfect  cause  must  be  infinite 
and  one.  And  now  I  seek  to  show  from  the 
order  and  harmony  of  Nature  that  this  cause 
must  also  be  rational.  The  conclusion  thus 
narrowed  down  to  this  special  point  becomes 
almost  a  truism:  the  objections  which  dis- 
credited the  old  argument  lose  all  their  force. 

But  it  may  be  said  that  evolutionary  science 
contradicts  my  view.  Not  a  perfect  cause,  infi- 
nite, one  and  rational,  but  Natural  Selection 
has  built  up  the  universe.  I  answer  that  the 
theory  of  evolution,  instead  of  contradicting 
my  view,  illumines  and  corroborates  it.  For  it 
reveals  the  methods,  the  intermediate  agencies 
employed  by  the  Infinite  Cause  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  universe.  Remember  that  Natural 
Selection  was  never  considered  by  Darwin  to 
be  the  sole  factor  in  evolution.  As  that  high 
authority,  Yves  Delage,  declares  :  "  Darwin's 
successors  exaggerated  (as  scientists  are  apt  to 
exaggerate  every  new  theory)  the  role  played 
by  selection."  3  This  exaggeration  is  much  to 
be  deplored.  It  has  imparted  a  sinister  aspect 
to  the  theory  of  evolution.  It  has  made  it  look 
as  if  cruelty,  pain  and  death  were  the  only 

3  Delage   and  Goldsmith :     Theories  of  Evolution,  pp. 
60,  61. 


36          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

actors  in  the  glorious  drama  of  the  world's 
development. 

Conversely,  my  doctrine  illumines  the  theory 
of  evolution.  Recall,  for  instance,  Spencer's 
splendid  attempt  to  construct  a  philosophy  of 
the  evolutionary  process.  He  finds  that  the 
process  has  three  essential  characteristics:  (1) 
Integration,  (2)  Differentiation  and  (3)  a  de- 
termination which  presupposes  a  definite  har- 
mony between  (1)  and  (2).  But  Hoffding, 
although  in  sympathy  with  Spencer,  points  out 
that  proof  of  this  third  characteristic  is  lack- 
ing. "  It  is  not  a  mere  accident,"  he  says, 
"  that  Spencer  was  unable  to  establish  this  prin- 
ciple. It  is  impossible  to  furnish  any  guaran- 
tee for  the  harmony  of  Integration  and  Differ- 
entiation. .  .  .  Spencer  therefore  was  unable 
to  furnish  a  proof  of  harmonious  evolution." 

But  this  harmony  for  which  both  Spencer 
and  Hoffding  sought  in  vain  I  have  certainly 
discovered.  For,  as  I  have  already  shown,  the 
essence  of  every  causal  process  is  to,  at  once, 
differentiate  cause  from  effect  and  yet  integrate 
or  unite  them  by  the  firmest  of  bonds. 

SECTION  V.     SELF-LIMITATION 

The  supreme  characteristic  of  a  perfect  or 
self-sufficient  cause  is  love  or  self-limitation  for 
the  sake  of  others. 


THE  PERFECT  CAUSE  37 

Whatever  acts  only  to  supply  some  want  or 
need  of  its  own  cannot  be  a  perfect  or  self- 
sufficient  cause.  For  that  which  was  lacking 
or  needed  would  be  an  alien  element  and  the 
ultimate  cause  of  the  action.  But  an  infinite 
being  has  need  of  nothing;  therefore,  if  it  acts 
at  all,  causes  any  change  or  effect,  it  must  act 
for  the  sake  of  others.  The  failure  to  see  this 
plain,  simple  and  yet  supremely  significant 
truth  was  the  fatal  error  in  Spinoza's  philoso- 
phy. He  denied  the  existence  of  any  final 
causes,  any  plan  or  purpose  in  the  divine  activ- 
ity ;  "  for,  if  God  acts  for  an  end,  it  must  needs 
be  that  God  desires  something  which  he  lacks, 
and  if  so,  de  facto  is  imperfect."  And  through 
this  failure,  Spinoza's  God  dwindled  into  mere 
substance,  without  intelligence,  will  or  person- 
ality of  any  kind. 

But  leaving  these  old  philosophies  to  rest 
quietly  in  their  sepulchres,  let  us  go  on  to  more 
vital  questions.  And  first  of  all:  How  is  it 
possible  to  think  of  God  as  thus  limiting  Him- 
self without  annulling  His  infinitude?  My  an- 
swer is,  by  thinking  of  Him,  not  in  terms  of 
space,  but  in  terms  of  causality.  Man  is  a  lit- 
tle creature,  but  he  does  not  diminish  himself 
by  deeds  of  self-limitation  or  sacrifice  for  th? 
sake  of  others.  Nor  does  self-sacrifice  impair, 
but  rather  ennobles  even  the  infinitude  of  God. 


38  THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

But  these  are  only  preliminaries.  Let  us 
hasten  to  the  fundamental  question  —  -  the  one 
great  perplexity  that  has  wrought  more  havoc 
in  human  thought  and  life  than  all  others  com- 
bined -  -  the  problem  of  evil.  If  God  loves 
mankind,  why  does  he  permit  so  much  evil  to 
exist  in  the  world?  The  drift  of  recent  thought 
seems  to  be  towards  solving  this  by  assuming 
that  God  is  finite,  limited  in  power.  Thus  Dr. 
Rashdall,  who  has  grown  famous  as  an  ex- 
pounder of  this  theory  of  God's  finiteness,  says : 
"  That  evil  is  a  means  to  the  greatest  attain- 
able good  is  a  proposition  which  is  only  main- 
tainable upon  the  hypothesis  -that  there  is  in 
the  ultimate  nature  of  things  -  -  that  is  to  say, 
in  the  ultimate  nature  of  God  -  -  an  inherent 
reason  why  greater  good  should  not  be  attain- 
able. But  the  dilemma  forces  itself  upon  us 
that  the  explanation  must  be  sought  either  in 
such  a  moral  limitation  (a  defect  of  goodness) 
or  in  some  other  kind  which  may  be  best  de- 
scribed as  a  limitation  of  Power."  And  he 
adopts  the  last  hypothesis,  "  the  union  in  one 
and  the  same  Being  of  absolute  Goodness  with 
limited  Power."  5 

Now  it  seems  to  me  that  the  true  key  to  the 
problem  can  be  expressed  by  interpolating  three 
words  between  the  first  two  in  that  quotation. 

4  Theory  of  Good  and  Evil,  II,  pp.  287,  288. 

5  Ibid,  II,  p.  341. 


THE  PERFECT  CAUSE  39 

* 

I  would  make  it  read  that,  not  evil,  but  the 
possibility  of  evil  is  a  means  to  the  greatest 
attainable  good.  The  change  is  verbally  slight, 
but  it  is  of  vast  significance.  To  say  that  evil 
is  a  means  to  the  greatest  good  is  to  extirpate 
morality.  It  makes  the  vilest  wretch  as  true 
a  servant  of  God  as  the  saint.  But  to  say 
that  the  possibility  of  evil  is  a  means  to  the 
greatest  good  is  little  more  than  a  truism.  For 
the  very  essence  of  moral  action  lies  in  the  fact 
that  it  is  possible  and  even  easier  to  do  the 
opposite  or  wrongful  act.  Doubtless,  God 
could  have  made  it  impossible  for  man,  as  He 
has  made  it  impossible  for  animals,  flowers, 
stones,  etc.,  to  do  wrong.  But  to  have  done 
so  would  not  show  any  increase  of  power  on 
his  part.  On  the  contrary,  it  would  prove  a 
defect  in  his  goodness ;  in  fact,  it  would  be,  so 
far  as  finite  beings  are  concerned,  an  abolition 
of  all  goodness  in  the  ethical  sense  of  the  term. 
Note  further  that  Rashdall  is  an  eager  de- 
terminist,  devoting  many  pages  to  exploiting 
that  doctrine.  Now,  the  determinist  point  of 
view  relieves  man  of  all  real  responsibility  for 
his  wrong-doing  and  thrusts  it  back  finally 
upon  his  Maker ;  and  thus  it  becomes  very  easy 
to  show  that  the  great  flood  of  evil  over-spread- 
ing the  earth  proves  God's  fmiteness  both  in 
goodness  and  in  power.  But  this  determinist's 
view  will  be  further  considered  when  we  come  to 


40          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

our  main  theme  -  -  the  proof  of  the  soul's  exist- 
ence. For  the  present  it  is  enough  to  see  that 
a  doctrine  can  hardly  be  true  which  leads  to 
two  such  monster  paradoxes  as  the  denial  of 
man's  responsibility  and  God's  infinitude. 

My  discussion  of  the  problem  of  evil  has  nec- 
essarily been  brief ;  too  much  so,  perhaps,  to 
be  altogether  satisfactory.  But  it  has  been 
made  plain,  I  think,  that  the  perplexity  of  this 
problem  is  largely  due  to  the  attempt  to  show 
that  evil  is  but  a  means  to  the  good.  Instead 
of  that  I  have  shown  that  the  mere  possibility 
of  evil  is  not  itself  an  evil.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  freedom  -  -  God's  noblest  .gift  to  man,  one 
bringing  us  into  such  close  kinship  with  him 
that  we  may  rightly  be  called  his  children.  Do 
you  say  that  He  might  have  endowed  us  with 
freedom  and  yet  prevented  all  wrong-doing  — 
that  is,  made  evil  at  once  possible  and  impos- 
sible? McTaggart  does  indeed  urge  that  om- 
nipotence could  defy  the  law  of  contradiction. 
But  such  a  saying  is  but  a  series  of  sounds  abso- 
lutely bereft  of  meaning. 

SECTION  VI.    THE  EXISTENCE  OF  GOD 

In  these  two  chapters  we  have  finally  reached 
a  full  demonstration  of  God's  existence.  Note, 
however,  that  this  proof  is  in  no  wise  the  fa- 
mous "  ontological  argument '  which  Kant  is 
said  to  have  demolished.  Really  it  had  been 


THE  PERFECT  CAUSE  41 

demolished  nearly  five  hundred  years  before 
Kant's  day,  by  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  who  re- 
jected it  on  the  ground  that  it  improperly 
passed  from  the  ideal  to  the  real  order.  So 
did  the  great  majority  of  the  Scholastics;  and 
we  are  told  that  the  Neo-Scholastics  of  to-day 
also  "  regard  the  ontological  proof  as  worth- 
less." But  this  proof,  rejected  by  the  Mid- 
dle Ages,  Descartes  restored  in  a  still  more 
irrational  form.  And  even  after  Kant  had  de- 
molished it  again,  Hegel  revived  it  once  more. 
But  Hegel's  God  or  Absolute  is  merely  the 
"  Totality  '  of  the  existent,  so  that  his  on- 
tological proof  seems  to  reduce  itself  to  the 
tautology  that  whatever  exists  exists. 

But  my  demonstration  is  the  polar  opposite 
of  all  this.  It  does  not  rest  upon  the  curious 
assumption  that  because  we  have  the  idea  of 
a  perfect  being,  therefore  such  a  being  must 
exist.  But  first  it  was  proved  inductively,  by 
a  study  of  every  form  of  thought,  that  the 
sole  essential  function  of  all  thinking  was  to 
affirm  causation  —  that  is,  to  interpret  the 
given  in  terms  of  cause  and  effect.  If  causa- 
tion, then,  is  not  real,  all  thinking  must  be 
false.  Therefore  it  is  impossible  for  thought 
to  deny  the  reality  of  causation ;  for  in  the  very 
attempt  to  do  so,  it  destroys  itself.  Our  sec- 
ond step  was  to  show  that  there  must  be  a 
perfect  or  self-sufficient  cause,  for  to  deny  that 


THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

was  to  virtually  cancel  causality  by  reducing 
it  to  an  endless  regress  of  effects  which  have 
no  real  cause.  The  existence  of  a  perfect  self- 
sufficient  cause  having  been  proved,  it  was 
shown  that  such  a  being  must  have  the  at- 
tributes of  infinitude,  oneness,  rationality  and 
love.  And  this  being,  thus  proved  to  be  ac- 
tually existent  and  endowed  with  these  at- 
tributes, is  the  theistic  God. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  UNITY  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 

SECTION   I.    THE   IDEALISTIC   PSEUDO-PROOF 

So  far  we  have  been  necessarily  occupied  in 
pioneer  work ;  for  the  pathway  to  rational  be- 
lief in  the  soul  is  beset  by  many  obstacles.  One 
great  difficulty  that  has  hindered  many  from 
recognizing  their  own  souls  is  that  we  are  all 
more  or  less  slaves  of  our  senses.  We  are  so 
accustomed  to  perceiving  things  in  their  spatial 
relations  —  shape,  size,  position,  etc. —  that 
we  demand  that  souls  should  exhibit  themselves 
in  such  relations.  Even  the  immortal  Descartes 
searched  in  the  brain  for  the  jjlace  where  the 
soul  was  located.  And  Kant  rejected  the  soul 
outright,  because  it  did  not  appear  as  a  sub- 
stance. 

But  we  have  now  seen  that  the  causal  cate- 
gory is  the  ultimate  all-embracing  one  to  which 
all  the  minor  categories  must  be  subordinated. 
Therefore,  to  comprehend  the  spiritual  we  must 
interpret  it  in  terms  of  cause  and  effect.  The 
moment  we  try  to  describe  it  in  spatial  terms 
—  location,  shape,  substance,  etc. —  we  are  lost 

babes  in  the  wood. 

43 


44          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

It  may  be  well  to  mention  another  method 
of  obscuring  the  soul's  reality,  much  in  vogue 
even  among  the  staunch,  orthodox  philosophers 
of  the  Scottish  school  of  common  sense  and 
realism.  The  stream  or  series  of  conscious 
states,  they  tell  us,  is  manifest ;  but  the  soul 
itself  is  merely  suggested.  Thus  Reid  says : 
Our  sensations  and  thoughts  do  also  suggest 
the  notion  of  a  mind  and  the  belief  of  its  ex- 
istence. Dugald  Stewart  also  declares  the 
soul's  existence  a  mere  suggestion.1  Sir  Wil- 
liam Hamilton  says :  "  There  is  only  possible 
a  deduced,  relative  and  secondary  knowledge  of 
self."  Dr.  Wayland  is  still  more  explicit : 
"  All  that  we  are  able  to  affirm  of  it  (the  mind) 
is  something  which  perceives,  reflects  and  wills ; 
but  what  that  something  is,  we  know  not." 

All  that  sounds  very  much  like  a  surrender 
to  the  enemy  of  souls.  Those  wrho  were  re- 
garded as  staunch  champions  of  spiritualism 
lay  down  their  arms  and  consign  souls  to  the 
dark  lists  of  the  Unknowable. 

And  the  defection  was  entirely  needless. 
For  from  what  we  have  proved  to  be  the  funda- 
mental law  of  all  thinking  is  derived  the  evi- 
dent corollary,  that  causes  cannot  be  known 
apart  from  their  effects,  and  conversely,  effects 
cannot  be  known  apart  from  their  causes.  To 
say,  then,  as  the  writers  quoted  do,  that  we 
i  Porter:  Intellectual  Science,  pp.  69,  70. 


UNITY  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS        45 

know  the  soul  only  through  its  activities  is  not 
an  altogether  false  assertion.  But  it  is  only  a 
half-truth  and  therefore  a  fatally  one-sided, 
mutilated  and  misleading  view.  For  it  keeps 
out  of  sight  the  complementary  truth  that  our 
psychic  activities  are  also  unknowable  apart 
from  the  unitary,  abiding  self  that  produces 
them.  And  no  other  falsehoods  are  quite  so 
deceptive  as  those  that  tell  one-half  of  the 
truth,  and  forget  to  tell  the  other  half. 

But  what  has  done  more  than  all  else  to 
undermine  belief  in  God  and  the  soul  is  the 
pseudo-proof  offered  by  idealism.  It  needs  but 
a  glance,  for  it  is  very  simple.  It  consists  in 
assuming  that  the  human  body,  like  all  other 
material  things,  is  an  illusion ;  but  I  certainly 
exist,  therefore  I  am  a  soul.  In  fact,  the 
origin  and  the  prestige  of  idealism,  both  in 
ancient  India  and  in  modern  Europe,  are  due 
mainly  to  this  very  cheap  and  easy  proof  which 
is  offered  for  the  existence  of  God  and  the 
human  soul. 

But  idealism  has  failed  ignominiously  to  keep 
the  promise  upon  which  its  prestige  rested. 
Kant,  for  instance,  boasted  that  he  had  "  de- 
stroyed knowledge  in  order  to  make  room  for 
faith."  But  faith,  if  it  is  to  be  any  more  than 
driveling  superstition,  must  be  "  according  to 
knowledge  " ;  and  so  Kant,  in  destroying  knowl- 


46          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

edge,  destroyed  true  faith.  And  Hegel's  ad- 
mirers now-a-days  will  hardly  dispute  that  his 
"  Absolute  "  is  but  a  travesty  upon  the  theistic 
conception  of  God.  McTaggart  admits  it 
openly  and  joyously.  Calkins  says :  "  It  must 
be  admitted  he  nowhere  outlines  the  argument 
(for  the  individuality  of  God).  To  the  pres- 
ent writer  this  neglect  seems  the  greatest  and 
most  inexplicable  defect  of  Hegel's  logic."  2 
And  concerning  the  human  soul  Hegel  himself 
says :  "  The  truth  is  that  there  is  only  one 
reason,  one  mind,  and  that  the  mind  as  finite 
has  no  existence." 

Let  us  briefly  consider,  then,  this  idealism 
which  promises  so  much  and  performs  so  little. 
It  is  based,  I  think,  upon  two  fundamental  er- 
rors. The  first  error  is  its  claim  that  we  have 
immediate  knowledge  only  of  our  sensations  and 
not  of  objects  perceived.  But  that  seems  to  me 
the  most  obvious  and  inexcusable  of  all  fallacies. 
To  know  anything  we  must  know  some,  at  least, 
of  its  attributes.  What,  then,  are  the  at- 
tributes by  which  one  sensation  is  discriminated 
from  another?  Is  it  not  evident  that  they  are 
attributes  not  of  the  sensations  themselves,  but 
of  the  objects  perceived?  Is  the  sensation  of 
a  round  object  itself  circular?  Is  the  sensa- 
tion of  a  mountain  any  taller  than  the  sensa- 
tion of  an  ant-hill?  Is  the  sensation  of  a  red 

2  Persistent  Problems  of  Philosophy,  p.  380. 


UNITY  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS        47 

object,  itself  painted  red?  Plainly  the  sensa- 
tions, insofar  as  psychical,  have  no  discernible 
attributes  of  their  own  by  which  they  can  be 
known. 

For  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  I  have 
been  insisting  upon  this  patent  truth ;  3  and 
in  that  time  I  have  found  but  two  writers  of 
note  coinciding  with  me.  Brentano  says : 
"  We  find  no  contrasts  between  presentations 
except  those  of  the  objects  to  which  presenta- 
tions refer."  And  recently  that  well-known 
idealist,  Joachim,  has  written  a  paper  in  which 
he  argues  at  great  length  that  no  mind  can 
know  its  own  psychical  processes.  "  We  are 
in  fact,"  he  says,  "  committed  to  an  infinite  pur- 
suit of  that  which,  by  the  very  terms  of  its 
conception,  cannot  be  caught  or  apprehended 
and  refuses  to  stand  over  against  us  as  an 
object  of  our  awareness.  At  every  step  of  our 
pursuit,  the  '  psychical  process  ' —  the  process 
of  apprehending  -  -  eludes  us  and  leaves  us  in 
possession  of  an  object  of  apprehension." 
But  curiously  enough,  he  does  not  seem  to  see 
that  this  view  annihilates  idealism.  For  the 
gist  of  idealism  is  that  the  mind  knows  only  its 
own  psychic  processes  and  therefore  that  noth- 
ing else  can  be  known  to  really  exist. 

The   second   idealistic   error  is   a  false   view 

s  Journal  of  Speculative  Philosophy,  Oct.  1886. 
*  Mind,  N.  S.,  Vol.  XVIII,  p.  70. 


48          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

of  illusions.  It  regards  them  as  the  product 
of  certain  tendencies  inherent  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  human  thought.  Kant  found  as  many 
as  fourteen  of  these  constitutional  tendencies 
all  leading  to  false  appearances.  But  mani- 
festly false  appearances  spring,  not  from  the 
constitution  of  thought,  but  from  the  lack  of 
thought  and  too  much  trust  in  mere  sense.  An 

o 

illusion  is  simply  the  ascription  of  a  given  ef- 
fect to  a  wrong  cause.  It  is  the  mission  of 
thought  not  to  produce  but  to  dispell  illusions. 
Once,  sunset,  e.g.,  was  deemed  to  be  caused  by 
the  sun's  motions ;  hard  thinking  revealed  the 
true  cause.  Kant  compared  himself  with  Co- 
pernicus. In  fact,  they  were  antipodes  in  think- 
ing. If  Copernicus  had  explained  sunrise  as 
due  to  one  of  the  fourteen  Kantian  a-priorities 

-  false  but  valid  for  all  -  -  mankind  would  still 
be  back  in  the  Dark  Ages. 

And  Hegel  carried  the  Kantian  irrationalism 
a  notch  higher.  For  him  everything  was  not 
merely  phenomenal,  but  also  self-contradictory. 
Nevertheless,  one  ought  to  look  kindly  upon 
idealism.  It  has  been,  in  philosophy,  very  much 
like  what  "  make-believe  '  is  in  child-life.  No 
one  scorns  the  little  girl  for  watching  over  her 
doll  so  tenderly ;  she  is  developing  her  imagina- 
tion and  the  holy  instinct  of  motherhood.  Just 
so  the  idealists'  paradoxes  must  not  be  taken 
too  seriously  or  judged  too  harshly;  they  be- 


UNITY  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS        49 

gan  in  an  instinctive  craving  for  the  knowledge 
of  God  and  the  soul.  Their  fault  is  that  they 
have  not  achieved  their  purpose.  They  have 
helped  to  destroy  what  they  promised  to  pro- 
mote. 

SECTION  II.     LOTZE'S  ARGUMENT 

Among  the  few  recent  idealists  who  have  de- 
fended the  belief  in  souls,  Lotze  stands  fore- 
most. He  presents  three  proofs  commonly  ad- 
duced for  that  belief.  The  first,  he  says,  "  that 
appeal  to  freedom  which  is  said  to  characterize 
mental  life  .  .  .  has  no  weight."  The  second 
is  the  entire  incompatibility  of  all  inner  proc- 
esses —  sensations,  ideas,  etc. —  with  motion  in 
space,  figure,  position,  etc.  To  that  proof  he 
assigns  only  a  very  slight  weight :  "  It  would 
be  going  too  far  to  assert  that  the  two  prin- 
ciples belong  to  two  different  sorts  of  sub- 
stance." 5  The  third  reason  .is  the  unity  of 

»/ 

consciousness.  That,  he  says,  "  is  the  unassail- 
able ground  on  which  the  conviction  of  the 
soul's  independence  can  securely  rest." 

But  it  seems  to  me  that  Lotze's  estimate  of 
the  three  proofs  must  be  exactly  reversed.  The 
first  and  the  second  proofs  are  far  stronger 
than  the  third.  Nor  have  I  ever  been  able  to 
find  any  cogency  even  in  his  argument  for  the 
unity  of  consciousness.  And  near  the  close  of 

s  Metaphysics,   §   241. 


50          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

the  chapter  he  clearly  discloses  the  real  basis 
of  his  belief  in  the  soul.  He  there  says: 
"  Lastly,  in  our  present  metaphysical  discus- 
sion we  need  not  have  entered  upon  these  ob- 
jections at  all.  .  .  .  Everything  we  supposed 
ourselves  to  know  of  matter  as  an  obvious  and 
independent  existence  has  long  since  dissolved 
in  the  conviction  that  matter  itself  ...  is 
nothing  but  an  appearance  to  our  percep- 
tions." In  fine,  his  whole  argument  tapers 
down  into  the  idealistic  pseudo-proof:  our  bod- 
ies are  illusions,  therefore  our  souls  exist. 

My  purpose  here  has  been,  not  to  disparage 
Lotze  -  -  a  prince  among  thinkers  —  but  to 
show  how  thin  and  weak  has  been  the  evidence 
heretofore  offered  for  the  soul's  existence.  But 
from  our  present  vantage-ground  I  hope  to 
reach  a  higher  level  of  proof.  In  this  chap- 
ter I  shall  try  to  recast  the  argument  for  the 
unity  of  consciousness.  The  other  two  proofs, 
the  crowning  and  conclusive  ones,  will  be  given 
in  the  two  following  chapters. 

SECTION     III.     THE     TRUE     UNITY     OF     CON- 
SCIOUSNESS 

Note  first  of  all  that  unity  is  the  most  am- 
biguous of  terms.     There  is  a  spatial  unity,  a 
contiguity  of  atoms  that  to  sense  seem  as  one ; 
also  a  unity  of  resemblance ;  and  many  others. 
6  Op.  cit.  §  248. 


UNITY  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS        51 

But  as  we  have  seen,  these  unities  are  defective 
and  deceptive,  unless  they  are  subordinated  un- 
der the  supreme  category  -  -  the  unity  of  cause 
and  effect.  And  under  that  category  the  unity 
of  consciousness  must  be  conceived.  It  is  not 
a  spatial  unity,  like  that  of  a  heap  of  sand. 
Nor  a  unity  of  resemblance ;  for  the  elements 
of  consciousness  are  exceedingly  diverse.  The 
flux  of  mental  phenomena  must  be  conceived 
as  myriads  of  evanescent  effects;  and  yet  as 
united  by  a  cause  which  is  aware  of  them  all, 
gives  them  varying  degrees  of  attention,  and 
out  of  them  constructs  an  organized  and  last- 
ing experience. 

Through  ignoring  this  distinction,  philosophy 
has  been  unable  to  prove  the  unity  of  conscious- 
ness. Lotze's  plea,  e.g.,  is  substantially  this : 
whatever  discerns  the  likeness  or  unlikeness  of 
things  must  be  a  unit.7  But  even  plants  ap- 
pear to  discriminate  between  different  soils  and 
foods.  And  chemical  elements  seem  to  know 
their  affinities.  Why,  then,  should  not  a  hu- 
man body  without  a  soul  be  able  to  do  what 
plants  and  gases  can  do? 

Others,  like  Prof.   Strong,  concede  that  the 
unity  of  consciousness  has  not  yet  been  proved ; 
"  all  the  difficulty  is  on  the  score  of  unity." 
He   promises    to    overcome    the   difficulty    in    a 

7  Op.  dt,  241. 

8  Why   the  Mind  has  a  Body,  last  page. 


52          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

future  book.  But  the  vast  series  of  psychic 
phenomena  that  go  flashing  through  a  human 
life  can  be  unified  only  in  the  way  I  have  de- 
scribed. 

But  it  will  be  objected  that  even  if  the  unity 
of  consciousness  can  thus  be  verified  and  ex- 
plained, that  does  not  prove  the  existence  of 
the  soul.  The  unifying  may  be  the  work  of 
the  brain.  In  answer  thereto  I  begin  by  quot- 
ing from  a  high  authority,  this :  "  The  in- 
cessant labors  of  a  multitude  of  workers  have 
revealed  the  fact  that  not  only  the  spinal  cord 
but  the  whole  of  the  brain  is  built  up  on  the 
reflex  plan.  There  is  even  good  reason  to  be- 
lieve, though  here  we  are  on  less  firm  ground, 
that  all  the  processes  of  the  brain,  even  those 
that  accompany  the  most  abtruse  thought, 
conform  to  the  same  fundamental  reflex  type." 
The  main  —  we  will  not  say  the  sole  —  func- 
tion of  the  brain  is  to  promote  reflex  action. 
That  function  is  of  priceless  value.  If  all  the 
intricate  activities  needful  for  the  maintenance 
of  life  had  to  be  worked  out  consciously  by  the 
mind  there  would  be  no  time  or  energy  left  for 
the  noble  activities  of  thought  or  reason.  Man 
would  be  a  mere  animal  ruled  by  blind  instinct. 

But   mark  now   that  this   reflex   action   is   a 
movement    opposite    to    that    of    thought  -   -  a 
movement   towards  blind   instinct   and   the  me- 
»  McDougall :     Body  and  Mind,  p.  107. 


UNITY  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS        53 

chanical.  It  is  absurd,  then,  to  account  for 
the  superiority  of  man  over  the  brutes,  as  due 
to  his  having  a  slightly  larger  brain.  For  the 
larger  the  brain,  the  greater  this  automatism, 
this  conversion  of  the  conscious  into  the  un- 
conscious —  the  very  negation  of  thought. 


CHAPTER  IV 
CONFLICT  OF  SENSE  AND  REASON 

The  second  proof,  incompatibility,  it  will  be 
remembered,  Lotze  regarded  as  having  but  little 
weight.  When  rightly  understood,  however,  it 
becomes  the  supreme  proof,  unanswerable  and 
conclusive. 

Modern  philosophy  has  been  much  perplexed 
by  that  aspect  of  contradiction  which  seems 
everywhere  to  pervade  the  universe.  Kant  as- 
cribed it  to  some  queer  twist  in  all  human  minds 
which  prevented  them  from  seeing  things  as 
they  really  are.  Hegel  ascribed  it  to  some 
strange  perversity  in  the  things  themselves. 
Neither  of  these  views  seems  at  all  satisfactory ; 
and  I  therefore  propound  another  as  follows : 
This  universal  aspect  of  contradiction  is  due 
to  the  dual  nature  of  man  -  -  to  the  constant 
conflict  of  the  senses  and  the  soul. 

To  prove  this,  let  us  briefly  survey  the  chief 
categories  of  human  knowledge.  It  will  not 
take  long,  for  these  antitheses  are  so  sharp  and 
clear  as  to  be  evident  at  a  glance  when  rightly 
presented.  And  it  will  be  found  in  each  case 


SENSE  AND  REASON  55 

that  the  two  antithetic  terms  are  not  merely 
different  from  each  other.  They  are  polar 
opposites ;  they  tend  in  contrary  directions. 
Therefore  in  each  case  the  two  antithetic  terms 
must  be  the  products  of  different  agencies. 
No  one  thing  can  move  simultaneously  in  op- 
posite directions.  Hence  throughout  all  hu- 
man experiences,  two  agencies  must  be  at  work ; 
on  the  one  hand,  the  animal  organism  producing 
our  sensations ;  on  the  other,  a  soul  that  thinks 
or  reasons. 

SECTION  I.     LIST  OF  ANTITHESES 

(1)  Reason.     Here    we    have    contradiction 
in   its   widest   and   clearest   type.      For   it   is    a 
mere  truism  to  say  that  Reason  discloses  hid- 
den  facts   that   are  contradicted  by   the  testi- 
mony of  the  senses. 

(2)  Causation.     Hume's  famous  disproof  of 
causality  rests  almost  solely  upon  the  fact  that 
a   causal  nexus  is   imperceptible  to  the  senses. 
To  that  no  answer  has  ever  been  made  either 
by  Kant  or  his  successors.      But  I  have  shown 
that  to  deny  causality  is  to  make  all  thinking 
impossible.      In  other  words,  the  very  essence, 
the   supreme   purpose    of   all   true    thinking,    is 
to  reveal  the  unseen.     Here,  then,  we  have  an- 
other antithesis   of   sublime   import.      The   ani- 
mal senses  show  us  the  visible ;  but  the  thinking 
soul  reveals  the  invisible. 


56          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

(3)  Relations.     The    besetting    sin    of    phi- 
losophers   is,    notoriously,    their   habit    of    hy- 
postasising    abstractions.      That    plainly    is    an 
outcome  of  the  strife  between  sense  and  reason. 
Instinctively  thinkers  are  beguiled  into  putting 
the  spiritual  in  sensuous  forms.     A  glaring  in- 
stance  thereof   is    afforded   by    Bradley's   bril- 
liant book,   "  Appearance   and  Reality."     The 
corner-stone  of  that  work  is  its  denial  of  rela- 
tions.     "  A  relational  way  of  thought,"  we  are 
told,  "  any  one  that  moves  by  the  machinery 
of  terms   and  relations,  must  give  appearance 
and  not  truth."     And  his  proof,  as  others  be- 
fore me  have  pointed  out,  consists  in  conceiving 
a  relation  as  a  thing  -  -  an  iron  bar,  as  it  were, 
which     seeks     but     everlastingly     fails     to     get 
hooked  on  to  its  two  terms.      Surely  sense  there 
won  a  silly  triumph  over  reason. 

(4)  Conception.     Here    again    a    contradic- 
tion emerges  over  which  a  wordy  warfare  has 
been  waged   for   at  least   two   thousand   years. 
On  the  one  hand,  our  senses,  like  those  of  other 
animals,   disclose   only   the   individual   and   iso- 
lated ;  on  the  other  hand,  Reason  reveals,  as  I 
have  shown,1  those  causal  processes  which  make 
the  reality  of  Natural  Kinds  indubitable.     The 
problem  can  never  be  adequately  solved  except 
by  recognizing  the  duality  of  human  nature. 

(5)  Analysis  and  Synthesis.     Thinking,  the 
i  Chapter  I,  Section  2,  p.  8. 


SENSE  AND  REASON  57 

Hegelians  say,  is  a  combining  of  two  contra- 
dictory functions ;  it  is  at  once  analytic  and 
synthetic ;  that  is,  it  at  once  divides  and  unites. 
Bosanquet  explains  this  as  follows :  "  In  me- 
chanical operations  we  cannot  pull  to  pieces  and 
put  together  the  same  thing  by  the  same  act." 
But  "  the  essence  of  thought  is  to  show  the 
process  in  the  result  and  exhibit  each  as  neces- 
sary for  the  other." 

Now  Bosanquet's  statement  concerning  the 
nature  of  thought  is  but  a  vague  version  of  the 
truth  formally  demonstrated  in  the  first  chap- 
ter of  this  book,  to  wit,  that  all  thinking  is 
essentially  a  relating  of  cause  and  effect.  But 
of  this  truth  he  offers  no  proof.  With  him  it 
is  a  mere  assumption  manufactured  to  meet  a 
difficulty. 

Furthermore,  there  is  no  real  contradiction 
between  the  analytic  and  the  synthetic  aspect 
of  thought.  They  seem  to  be  contradictory 
because  our  bondage  to  sense  leads  us  to  con- 
found the  mental  operations  of  analysis  and 
synthesis  with  the  sensible  operations  of  di- 
viding and  uniting  a  thing.  In  short,  we  have 
here  a  signal  example  of  the  conflict  between 
sense  and  reason. 

(6)  Similarity.  No  concept  is  so  often  used 
even  among  philosophers  as  that  of  similarity 
or  likeness.  And  no  other  is  so  fruitful  in  mis- 
understandings and  paradoxes.  On  its  very 


58          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

face  it  bears  the  stamp  of  the  self-contradictory. 
For  there  are  no  two  things  that  are  not  at 
once  like  and  unlike  each  other. 

It  is  significant  that  Bergson,  who  has  gained 
celebrity  through  his  attempt  to  disparage  in- 
tellect as  inferior  to  instinct  or  feeling,  bases 
his  contention  upon  this  elusive,  self-contradic- 
tory relation  of  mere  resemblance.  He  asserts 
repeatedly  that  "  the  natural  function  of  the 
intellect  is  to  bind  like  to  unlike."  He  even 
maintained  that  "  there  is  a  vague  and  in  some 
sort  objective  resemblance  spread  over  the  sur- 
face of  the  images  themselves,"  and  that  "  this 
similarity  acts  objectively  like  a  force."  That 
seems  the  climax  of  nonsense. 

Bergson  does  not  see  that  it  is  sense  or  in- 
stinct -  -  not  intellect  —  that  is  guided  solely 
by  the  likeness  or  unlikeness  of  things. 
Thought,  as  the  whole  history  of  science  teaches, 
liberates  from  that  bondage.  It  transmutes,  as 
I  have  shown  (Chapter  I,  Section  2)  the  vague 
misleading  relations  of  similarity  into  causal 
relations. 

(7)  Space.  Here  little  need  be  added  to 
what  I  have  already  said  concerning  perceptual 
and  conceptual  space.2  The  former,  which 
gives  us  the  spatial  relations  between  sensible 
things  -  -  distances,  directions,  etc.—  -  is  the 
pure  product  of  sensation ;  animals  recognise 

2  Chapter   I,  Section  5. 


SENSE  AND  REASON  59 

them  as  clearly  as  man  does,  often  more  so. 
But  man,  endowed  with  reason,  recognises  also 
conceptual  space  -  -  that  is,  a  space  which  is 
not,  as  spatial  relations  are,  many,  -finite,  di- 
visible, but  on  the  contrary,  absolutely  one, 
infinite  and  indivisible.  Unmistakably  we  have 
here  an  enormous  contrast  -  -  contradiction  mul- 
tiplied three-fold.  And  yet  these  more  than  po- 
lar opposites  constantly  present  themselves  in 
all  human  experience.  Can  their  co-existence 
be  explained  except  as  the  products  of  two 
diametrically  different  agencies,  animal  sense 
and  the  thinking  soul? 

(8)  Time.     The    same    argument    evidently 
applies   to   the   contrariety   shown  in  our  first 
chapter  between  temporal  relations  or  periods 

-  such  as  hours,  days,  years,  etc.-  -  and  time 
as  a  whole.  The  temporal  periods  are  many, 
finite,  and  divisible.  But  time  itself  is  one,  in- 
finite and  indivisible.  Here,  then,  is  another 
point-blank  contradiction  between  what  sense 
perceives  and  reason  discovers. 

(9)  Time  and  Space.     But  common  to  both 
of  these   there   is   another   contradiction   which 
has    wrought    more    perplexity,    dispute,    and 
chaotic   confusion   in   modern   philosophy   than 
all  other   causes   combined.      On  the   one  hand, 
both    Space   and   Time   when    contemplated   by 
sense    seem    to    be    absolutely    nothing:    space 
possesses  no  sensible  mark  or  attribute  by  which 


60          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

it  can  be  distinguished  from  pure  nothing;  and 
as  for  time,  the  present  is  a  mere  boundary  line 

-  without    width  -  -  between    the    non-existent 
past  and  the  non-existent  future.     It  was  this 
apparent  nothingness  that  made  it  so  easy  for 
Kant  to  convince  his  disciples  that  space  and 
time  were  mere  fictions  of  the  mind.     But   on 
the  other  hand,  Reason  teaches    (as  shown  in 
Chapter   I)    that   these   two   nothings   are   real 
causes  upon  which  everything  else  in  the  uni- 
verse depends  for  its  existence.     Abolish  space 
and  time,  and  you  blot  out  the  universe.     For 
what  exists  nowhere  and  never,  does  not  exist 
at  all. 

(10)  Numbers.  The  arithmetical  unit  is  the 
most  difficult  conception  which  primitive  thought 
has  to  grasp,  because  it  is  the  most  antithetic 
to  what  the  senses  teach.  For  the  units  are 
absolutely  alike  and  unchangeable ;  but  sensi- 
ble things  are  never  quite  alike  and  forever 
changing.  And  it  is  not  the  untutored  savage 
alone  that  is  embarrassed  by  this  contrariety  of 
reason  and  sense.  Even  the  Greeks  -  -  princes 
in  philosophy,  poetry  and  the  fine  arts  -  -  seem 
to  have  been  unable  to  clearly  distinguish  be- 
tween numbers  and  things  numbered.3  So  im- 
perfect was  their  system  of  notation  that  they 
had  to  work  all  difficult  problems  geometrically.4 

s  Wallace:     Prolegomena   Hegel's   Logic. 

*  Ritchie:     Plato,    p.    49. 


SENSE  AND  REASON  61 

Something  of  this  conflict  lingers  subtly  in 
modern  philosophy.  Thus  Mill  argues  that  all 
numbers  must  be  numbers  of  something;  ab- 
stract numbers  do  not  exist.5  On  the  contrary, 
James  is  confident  that  "  all  arithmetical  propo- 
sitions deal  with  abstract  and  ideal  numbers 
exclusively." 

(11)  Physical  Science.  We  have  thus  exam- 
ined the  ten  chief  categories  with  which  science 
deals.  But  it  may  be  well  to  add  a  quotation 
from  James  concerning  the  sciences  in  general. 
"  They  are  all  translations  of  sensible  experi- 
ence into  other  forms  .  .  .  coupled  with  decla- 
rations that  the  experienced  form  is  false  and 
the  ideal  form  true.  .  .  .  And  the  miracle  of 
miracles,  a  miracle  not  yet  exhaustively  treated 
by  any  philosophy,  is  that  the  given  order  lends 
itself  to  the  remodelling."  There  is  no  "  mir- 
acle," however,  but  simply  the  natural  yielding 
of  the  "  night-view '  given  by  sense  to  "  the 
daylight  view  '  given  by  reason. 

SECTION  II.     ART 

What  has  just  been  said  concerning  science 
applies  also  to  art.  Indeed,  art  was  the  soul's 
first  revolt  against  the  bondage  of  sense— -an 
effort  to  free  itself,  to  rise  to  something  higher 
than  animal  life  and  feeling.  History  shows 

s  Logic,  Bk.  II,  Chap.  II,  Sec.  2. 
6  Psychology,   II,   p.   655. 


62  THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

this  priority  of  art  to  anything  like  scientific 
thought.  The  brutish  dwellers  in  the  Dor- 
dogne  caves  had  somehow  acquired  the  artistic 
gift ;  their  modellings  of  mammoths,  deer,  etc., 
show  a  surprising  excellence.  It  seems  well  au- 
thenticated also  that  in  the  genesis  of  language, 
poetry  long  preceded  prose. 

Unfortunately,  I  must  here  confine  myself  to 
brief  mention  of  two  or  three  phases  of  art. 
And  first  of  all  to  that  pre-eminent  mark  of 
the  aesthetic  spirit,  The  Love  of  Nature. 
Therein  the  conflict  between  sense  and  reason 
which  pervades  all  human  experience  is  most 
vividly  displayed.  Sense  is  chiefly  impressed 
by  the  disagreeable  aspects  of  Nature  - 
storms,  earthquakes  and  other  perils.  Even  so 
artistic  a  race  as  the  Greeks  seem  to  have  been 
devoid  of  any  genuine  love  of  Nature.  "  So 
far  as  I  can  recollect,"  says  Ruskin,  "  every 
Homeric  landscape  intended  to  be  beautiful  is 
composed  of  a  fountain,  a  meadow  and  a  shady 
grove."  The  poet  Schiller  also  declares  that 
the  Greeks  "  took  no  interest  or  heart  in  the 
details  of  Nature."  With  the  Romans  it  was 
still  worse.  Even  the  glories  of  Alpine  scenery 
suggested  to  them  no  associations  but  those  of 
horror  and  desolation.  "  The  few  attempts  at 
landscape  painting  among  the  Greeks  and  Ro- 
mans," says  Brunn,  "  never  rose  above  a  bird's- 


SENSE  AND  REASON  63 

eye  view  or  an  insipid  scenography."  7  But 
later  on,  when  Europe  had  been  taught  that 
one  Infinite  and  self-sacrificing  Cause  mani- 
fested Himself  even  in  the  lowliest  things  on 
earth,  then  the  Love  of  Nature  burst  forth  like 
the  rising  of  the  sun.  Animal-  and  plant-life 
became  centers  of  poetic  interest.  "  The  Ro- 
mance of  the  Rose,"  for  example,  was  trans- 
lated into  many  languages  and  everywhere  re- 
ceived with  extravagant  delight.8  And  not 
only  in  these  grand,  epical  forms,  but  in  the 
simple,  homely  songs  of  the  common  people, 
the  same  deep,  mystical  passion  for  Nature  is 
displayed. 

Gothic  Architecture  is  another  triumph  of 
reason  over  sense,  of  the  spirit  over  the  flesh. 
Greek  architecture  was  limited  to  the  outer 
form:  "  the  exterior  is  of  a  simple  but  majestic 
beauty  ;  the  interior  is  contracted  and  paltry." 
But  in  the  medieval  cathedral  the  exterior,  al- 
though grand,  is  but  the  casket  holding  the 
treasures  within.  The  lofty  aisles,  the  vaults 
interwoven  like  a  forest,  the  host  of  attenuated 
columns,  the  dim  vistas,  the  solemn  shadows 
intermingling  with  radiant  color,  the  circular 
window  with  its  brilliant  petals  figuring  the 


Gesch.  d.  Griechischen  Kiinstler,  II,  p.  308. 

8  Roquefort:     La   Poesie   Francaise,   p.    170. 

9  Schnaase  :     Gesch.  d.  Bild.  Kunst.,  IV,  p.  193. 


64  THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

rose  of  eternity,  the  maze  of  details  fashioned 
from  the  flowers  by  the  wayside  -  -  all  unite  to 
form  one  vast  symbol  of  God  and  Nature.  It 
is  the  victory  of  the  inner  over  the  outer,  of 
spirit  over  sense. 

Music,  too,  tells  the  same  story.  Sense  gives 
us  but  a  medley  of  noises ;  and  the  first  efforts 
to  unify  this  chaos  created  the  monotonous 
music  known  to  savages.  Even  of  the  Greeks 
it  is  said  that  "  it  remains  to  be  proved  that 
their  vocal  melody  consisted  of  anything  more 
strictly  musical  than  intoning."  But  musi- 
cal harmony  is  the  gift  of  the  Middle  Ages  to 
the  world's  art.  It  was  first  -discovered  in  the 
times  of  Gregory  the  Great.  But  in  the  age 
of  the  crusades  "  the  art  of  descant  was  invented 
and  the  evolution  of  modern  music  was  fairly 
under  way."  ll  From  noise  and  monotony  to 
modern  music  is  surely  a  great  triumph  of  soul 
over  sense. 

SECTION  III.     MORALITY 

The  contrariety  between  the  sensuous  and  the 
ethical  is  so  obvious  that  it  needs  but  to  be 
mentioned.  Long  ago  it  crystallized  in  that 
famous  line  of  the  poet,  ;  Video  meliora  pro- 
boque;  deteriora  sequor."  Moralit}^  implies  a 

loHullah:     History   of  Modern  Music,  p.   92. 
11  Op.  cit.  p.  77. 


SENSE  AND  REASON  65 

conscious  refusal  to  do  what  we  feel  a  strong 
desire  to  do  —  a  conscious  inhibition  of  im- 
pulses working  steadily  and  mightily  within 
us. 

But  it  may  be  objected  that  this  conflict  of 
impulses  does  not  necessarily  involve  a  dual 
agency.  A  man  may  have  a  strong  desire  to 
slay  another,  but  be  deterred  therefrom  by  fear 
of  the  consequences.  That  is  true  but  irrele- 
vant. For  in  such  a  divided  consciousness  there 
is  no  ethical  element.  He  who  refrains  from 
murder  solely  through  fear  of  being  hanged  is 
at  heart  a  murderer. 

The  essence  of  morality,  then,  is  self-denial. 
"  All  have  sinned."  The  best  of  men  have  to 
wage  perpetual  war  against  evil  desires  and 
tendencies.  And  this  strife  cannot  be  accounted 
for  by  anything  in  the  merely  animal  nature 
of  man.  As  a  competent  authority  has  said : 
"  The  analogies  between  the  habits  of  animals 
and  the  customs  of  the  most  backward  natives 
of  Australia  prove  so  faint  as  to  cast  no  light 
at  all  on  any  of  the  special  developments  within 
the  moral  nature  of  the  latter."  12 

And  nothing  but  frank  recognition  of  man's 
dual  nature  will  throw  any  real  light  upon  the 
dark  theme  of  human  conduct.  On  the  one  side 
is  the  animal  nature  which,  left  to  itself,  en- 

i2Marett:     Personal  Idealism,  p.  248. 


66          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

genders  only  brutishness.  On  the  other  is  the 
human  spirit  able  to  know  the  right  and  to  bat- 
tle against  the  wrong. 

We  have  made  a  wide  survey  of  psychic  ac- 
tivities, and  everywhere  we  have  found  a  realm 
of  self-contradiction.  Fortunately,  too,  our 
finding  seems  to  be  supported  by  the  general 
drift  of  modern  philosophy.  Kant  rested  all 
upon  his  famous  antinomies.  Hegel  even  pro- 
claimed that  "  contradiction  was  the  moving 
spirit  of  the  world."  Quite  recently  an  eminent 
French  philosopher  has  scornfully  dismissed 
the  intellect  as  "  characterized  by  a  natural  in- 
ability to  comprehend  life."  And  Hoffding 
ends  his  latest  work  thus :  "  In  all  our  prob- 
lems we  end  with  an  interminable  conflict.  .  .  . 
We  cannot  solve  definitely  these  problems." 

But  while  agreeing  with  all  these  grand  mas- 
ters as  to  the  fact  of  universal  contradiction, 
my  interpretation  of  the  fact  is  the  exact  re- 
verse of  theirs.  First,  it  involves  no  paradoxes. 
Unlike  Kant's  interpretation,  it  does  not  regard 
the  human  intellect  as  an  evil  machine  producing 
only  illusions  and  lies.  Unlike  Hegel's,  it  does 
not  regard  things  as  perversely  bent  upon  con- 
tradicting each  other. 

Secondly,    my    interpretation    is    not    mere 

!3  Bergson:     Creative   Evolution,   p.    165. 
i*  Problems    of    Philosophy. 


SENSE  AND  REASON  67 

guess-work,  but  rigidly  verified.  In  all  realms 
of  human  experience  we  have  found  a  constant 
tendency  to  simultaneous  movements  in  exactly 
opposite  directions.  Therefore,  in  human  ex- 
perience there  must  be  two  diverse  agencies  at 
work  —  animal  sensation  and  a  rational  soul. 
That  is  as  certain  as  that  the  same  object  can- 
not at  the  same  instant  move  both  up  and  down. 
When  that  simple  truth  works  its  way  into 
the  speculative  mind,  souls  will  come  in  fashion 
again. 


CHAPTER  V 
FREEDOM 

The  controversy  concerning  "  free  will  '  has 
assumed  such  immense  proportions  without 
reaching  any  satisfactory  conclusion,  that  it 
may  seem  absurd  to  attempt  a  settlement  of  the 
question  in  one  short  chapter.  Nevertheless, 
from  our  present  vantage-ground  I  venture 
upon  the  task.  If  perchance  I  succeed,  we  shall 
have  a  third  and  final  proof  of  the  soul's  exist- 
ence. 

My  attempt  divides  into  two  tasks.  The 
first  will  seek  to  negative  the  determinisms  argu- 
ment ;  the  second,  to  give  a  full,  positive  proof 
of  freedom. 

SECTION  I.    THE  INCONCEIVABILITY  OF 

FREEDOM 

The  stronghold  of  determinism  is  the  conten- 
tion that  freedom  is  unthinkable.  No  satisfac- 
tory answer  has  ever  been  made  to  that  conten- 
tion. Nay,  more  than  that,  the  greatest  minds 
among  libertarians  have  openly  conceded  this 

inconceivability.     Kant      said :     "  Freedom     is 

68 


FREEDOM  69 

only  an  idea  of  reason  and  therefore  its  objec- 
tive reality  is  doubtful  ...  we  cannot  com- 
prehend the  practical  unconditioned  necessity 
of  the  moral  imperative."  So  Fichte  said : 
"  We  make  this  resolve  not  from  any  theoretic 
insight,  but  in  consequence  of  a  practical  in- 
terest. I  will  be  independent,  hence  I  resolve 
to  consider  myself  independent."  Also  Sir  Wil- 
liam Hamilton :  "  How  the  will  can  possibly 
be  free  must  remain  to  us,  under  the  present 
limitation  of  our  faculties,  wholly  incomprehen- 
sible." 

Not  all  libertarians  have  been  thus  frank. 
But  all  have  virtually  succumbed  to  this  de- 
terministic attack :  some  by  ignoring  it ;  some 
by  futile  replies. 

Let  me  quote  here  from  an  author  who  has 
recently  put  forth  a  large  volume  in  defense  of 
freedom.  But  in  the  middle  of  it  he  surrenders 
thus :  "  Why  does  the  free  self  choose  one 
line  of  action  rather  than  another?  The  only 
choice  left  us  here  appears  to  be  between  an 
antinomy  and  an  infinite  regress,  which  is  a 
veritable  Scylla  and  Charybdis.  If  the  self  be 
ever  so  free  to  choose,  choice  without  a  reason 

-  or  cause  or  preference  —  for  that  choice  is 
unthinkable.  If  the  reason  be  sufficient  it  is 
determining.  So  we  come  to  the  antinomy  of 
a  free  yet  determined  choice  which  seems  self- 
contradiction.  If  it  be  suggested  that  self  ex- 


70          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

ercises  control  over  the  reason  which  controls 
the  choice,  then  there  must  be  a  reason  for  such 
control,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum." 

Thus  completely  at  a  loss,  our  author  makes 
the  usual  flimsy  appeal  to  consciousness,  and 
finally  says :  "  The  reality  of  freedom  lies 
deeper  than  argument."  Now  plainly  that  is 
a  complete  surrender :  if  it  is  true,  the  other 
four  hundred  pages  of  the  book  are  but  so  much 
waste  paper.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the 
other  writers  mentioned;  and  a  host  of  others 
unmentioned.  Why  write  countless  books  and 
waste  time  in  endless  argumentation  in  the  vain 
endeavor  to  prove  the  reality  of  something  ab- 
solutely incomprehensible? 

But  from  our  present  point  of  view,  it  is  easy 
to  see  the  error  underlying  all  these  surrenders 
to  determinism.  A  free  cause,  instead  of  being 
unthinkable,  is  the  only  thoroughly  comprehen- 
sible cause.  It  is  the  only  true  or  complete 
type  of  causation.  From  that  type  all  imper- 
fect or  partial  causes  are  deviations  due  to 
their  defects  and  obscurities.  To  quote  again 
wise  old  Aristotle's  maxim :  "  By  the  concept 
of  the  straight  we  discover  both  the  straight 
and  the  crooked." 

But  the  determinist  exactly  reverses  this 
golden  rule.  He  would  mutilate  the  most  per- 
fect form  of  finite  causality  -  -  the  human  -  -  in 

iBallard:     False  and  True  Determinism,  p.  240. 


FREEDOM  71 

order  to  make  it  like  the  lowest,  most  defective 
form,  to  wit,  the  causality  of  inert,  irrational 
things.  Such  causes  seem  hardly  worthy  of 
the  name,  to  be  rather  mere  effects,  each  mys- 
teriously linked  to  its  antecedent  and  so  on  into 
the  midnight  of  the  infinite  past. 

And  yet  this  transparent  fallacy,  this  degrad- 
ing of  causality  to  its  emptiest  form,  is  the  tap- 
root of  determinism.  Thus  Hume  said :  "  Ac- 
cording to  the  doctrine  of  liberty  or  chance, 
this  (causal)  connection  is  reduced  to  nothing. 
...  As  the  action  proceeds  from  nothing  in 
him  that  is  durable  and  constant  and  leaves 
nothing  of  that  nature  behind  it  ...  therefore 
a  man  is  as  pure  and  untainted  after  having 
committed  the  most  horrid  crimes  as  at  the  first 
moment  of  his  birth."  That  is  to  say,  a  free 
or  perfect  cause  is  unthinkable.  If  an  act  has 
not  been  compelled  by  some  previous  act  or 
event,  it  has  been  done  by  chance  —  that  is,  by 
nothing.  And  this  nonsense  is  still  being  re- 
hearsed by  the  most  eminent  determinists,  e.g., 
McTaggart,  Bain,  Fullerton,  Hobhouse,  Rash- 
dall,  etc.,  as  their  chief  disproof  of  freedom. 

SECTION  II.     REASON  AND  CAUSE 

The  determinist  is  led  still  further  astray 
by  that  vagueness  of  popular  speech  which  con- 
founds reason  and  cause.  But  between  these 
two  there  is  this  deep  and  wide  distinction  — 


72  THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

reason  compels  belief,  but  not  action.  One  may 
have  the  best  of  reasons  for  doing  an  act  and 
yet  fail  to  do  it.  Only  when  the  will  or  spirit 
issues  its  fiat  does  the  action  ensue. 

But  the  determinist  curiously  transfers  this 
compulsion  from  the  belief  to  the  act.  He  ar- 
gues, reason  compels  one  to  believe  that  he 
ought  to  do  a  certain  act,  therefore  it  compels 
him  to  do  it.  But  that  on  its  very  face  seems 
absurd.  And.  yet  even  eminent  libertarians 
succumb  to  it.  Thus  Sir  William  Hamilton 
says :  "  A  determination  by  motives  cannot  to 
our  understanding  escape  from  necessitation." 
And  Dr.  Ballard,  in  the  passage  already  quoted, 
insists  that  in  choosing  there  must  be  some  rea- 
son that  compels  on&  to  choose  this  rather  than 
that.  In  the  same  way  many  others  virtually 
give  up  the  fight  for  freedom. 

Coupled  with  this  there  is  another  ambiguity 
equally  disastrous.  There  are  two  kinds  of 
choice  radically  different  from  each  other,  the 
one  mechanical,  the  other  ethical.  The  former 
-  pleasure  accepted,  pain  avoided  -  -  is  purely 
automatic,  almost  unconscious.  The  latter  is 
the  rejection  of  the  pleasant  at  the  command 
of  duty ;  it  is  self-denial,  the  choice  of  the 
straight  gate  and  the  narrow  way.  This  abso- 
lute contrariety  between  the  two  choices  has 
often  been  noted.  Thus  Wundt,  e.g.,  says: 
Let  m  be  a  motive  for  and  n  a  motive  against 


.. 


FREEDOM  73 

some  volition ;  the  result  will  be  not  m-n  but 
may  be  a  double  or  treble  m  or  n."  Or  as  Prof. 
Poynting  states  it :  "  A  body  does  not  yield 
to  the  strongest  force.  It  moves  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  resultant  of  all  the  forces.  But  the 
will  finally  takes  one  course  and  the  motives 
prompting  to  other  courses  all  drop  out  of 
action."  2 

Determinism,  then,  rests  upon  a  threefold 
fallacy,  (a)  It  assumes  that  a  free  or  perfect 
cause  is  inconceivable ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
the  only  cause  which  is  fully  and  clearly  con- 
ceivable; all  imperfect  or  partial  causes  depend 
upon  it  for  their  explanation,  (b)  It  assumes 
that  having  a  reason  for  an  action  makes  that 
action  compulsory ;  which  is  absurdly  untrue, 
(c)  It  confounds  mechanical  with  ethical  choice. 
Extirpate  these  three  fallacies  and  the  whole 
fabric  of  determinism  instantly  collapses. 

SECTION    III.     THE    POSITIVE    PROOF    OF 

FREEDOM 

But  more  is  needed  than  a  mere  refuting  of 
the  determinist  argument.  Positive  proof  is 
demanded ;  all  the  more  because  the  gift  of 
freedom  is  unique  and  unparalleled  in  the 
world's  phenomena. 

Up  to  the  present  time  no  such  proof  has 
been  proffered.  Instead,  there  has  been  only 

^Hibbert  Journal,  1909,  p.   743. 


74  THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

much  loud  assertion  that  we  are  conscious  of 
our  freedom.  But  mere  assertion  proves  noth- 
ing. It  is  open,  too,  to  Spinoza's  sarcasm  that 
man  thinks  himself  free  because  he  does  not 
know  the  causes  that  compel  him. 

But  we  have  now  reached  a  point  where  a 
solid  proof  can  be  obtained,  resting  upon  veri- 
fied facts  and  not  upon  mere  assertions.  For 
in  Chapter  II,  it  was  shown  that  the  four  main 
constituents  of  a  perfect  or  self-sufficient  cause 
were  infinitude,  unity,  rationality  and  self-limi- 
tation for  the  sake  of  others.  Now,  man  is 
manifestly  possessed  of  the  three  last  named 
characteristics.  (1)  He  is  a  unit,  both  as  an 
animal  organism,  and  -  -  as  was  shown  in  Chap- 
ter III  —  as  a  thinking,  conscious  being.  (2) 
He  is  certainly  rational ;  although  woefully 
prone  to  lapse  into  irrationality.  (S)  He  has 
the  power,  which  he  exercises  more  or  less,  of 
limiting  or  denying  himself  for  the  sake  of 
others. 

But,  of  course,  he  is  not  infinite.  And  so 
the  crucial  question  is  this :  Does  the  lack  of 
infinitude  debar  him  from  being,  not  an  abso- 
lutely, but  a  relatively  perfect  or  free  cause? 
To  that  question  there  can  be  but  one  sensible 
answer.  Man's  finiteness  does  not  necessarily 
debar  him  from  a  finite  or  limited  freedom. 
And  mark  now  that  this  is  the  only  kind  of 
freedom  which  he  possesses.  On  every  side  he 


FREEDOM  75 

is  hemmed  in  by  laws  and  restrictions  which  he 
can  no  more  defy  or  evade  than  he  can  arrest 
the  revolution  of  the  earth  on  its  axis.  But 
in  the  limited  sphere  of  morals,  man  is  free. 
He  cannot  be  compelled  to  act  wrongfully. 
For  an  act  that  is  compelled  cannot  be  morally 
wrong.  Its  compulsoriness  obliterates  its  eth- 
ical quality. 

Man,  then,  has  all  but  one  of  the  four  essen- 
tial characteristics  of  a  perfect  or  free  cause. 
But  the  lack  of  that  one  —  infinitude  —  is  no 
bar  to  a  finite  freedom.  Much  corroborating 
evidence  might  be  given  if  space  permitted. 
But  this  alone  is  full,  positive  proof  of  human 
freedom. 

And  this  assurance  of  freedom  is  the  final 
guarantee  of  the  soul's  existence.  For  it  shat- 
ters that  ancient  error  —  three  thousand  years 
old  in  India,  and  revived  in  the  Hegelian  or 
culminating  phase  of  modern  idealism  —  which 
denies  the  individuality  of  the  soul  and  pictures 
it  as  the  flitting  shadow  of  an  infinite  energy. 
Thus  Hegel  affirms  that  "  the  mind  as  finite  has 
no  existence."  Or  as  Haldane  says :  "  Both 
the  external  world  of  things  and  the  spiritual 
world  of  persons  have  their  existence,  somehow 
or  other,  in  only  one  Supreme  Existence." 

But  we  have  escaped  from  this  wild  Hindu 
s  Mechanism,  Life  and  Personality,  p.  74. 


76          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

illusionism  by  reversing  the  method  of  research. 
We  began  by  studying  causality  in  its  most  per- 
fect type  -  -  not  in  its  most  imperfect  and  there- 
fore least  knowable  forms.  Thus  we  were  en- 
abled to  demonstrate  the  existence  of  God. 
Passing  thence  to  human  causality  we  found  in 
it  a  threefold  proof  of  the  soul's  existence: 
(1)  as  an  agent  unifying  the  flux  of  thought 
and  feeling;  (2)  as  an  activity  in  polar  con- 
trast with  that  of  mere  body;  (3)  as  a  free 
cause,  finite  indeed,  but  still  closely  akin  to  the 
divine. 

Thus  philosophy  is  saved  from  sinking  back 
into  the  old  Hindu  illusionism.  And  it  can 
safely  leave  the  problem  of  the  nature  of  ma- 
terial things  to  be  solved  by  experimental  sci- 
ence. 


CHAPTER  VI 
IMMORTALITY 

SECTION    I.     PRELIMINARY   CONSIDERATIONS 

If  anything  exists,  then  souls  exist.  Of  that 
fact  we  have  now  gained  ample  evidence.  But 
it  has  been  maintained  even  by  devout  believers 
in  the  soul's  reality  -  -  Pfleiderer,  for  example 
-  that  this  proves  only  the  bare  possibility  of 
its  continuance  after  the  death  of  the  body. 
It  gives  hope,  but  no  firm  assurance.  But  I 
now  seek  to  show  that  we  can  go  farther  than 
this ;  that  from  our  present  vantage-ground 
we  can  logically  reach  as  firm  an  assurance  of 
the  life  beyond  as  we  have  of  most  things  on 
this  side  of  the  grave. 

Consider  first  the  polar  contrast  between  body 
and  mind.  Long  ago  Occasionalism  raised  a 
problem  which  after  three  centuries  of  dispute 
still  remains  unsolved:  How  can  entities  so 
utterly  disparate  interact  with  each  other?  It 
is  a  stumbling-block  against  which  the  rival 
philosophies  have  fallen  helpless. 

But  mark  now  this  indubitable  and  most  sig- 
nificant fact.  All  this  dark,  inexplicable  mys- 

77 


78  THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

tery  in  the  relationship  of  matter  and  mind,  or 
body  and  soul,  concerns  only  their  unity  and 
not  their  separation.  More  than  that,  this 
mystery  of  the  union  illumines  the  nature  and 
the  certainty  of  that  separation  which  takes 
place  when  the  body  "  returns  to  the  dust  and 
the  spirit  to  the  God  that  gave  it."  Death  is 
the  dissolution  of  the  millions  of  cells  aggre- 
gated in  the  body ;  but  the  soul  being  a  perfect 
unit  and  a  unifying  agent  is  indissoluble,  death- 
less. The  present  life,  then,  is  the  real  mys- 
tery; it  is  the  dark  wilderness  through  which 
man  gains  the  promised  land  of  immortality. 

(2)  Consider  also  the  mind's  supremacy 
over  the  body.  It  governs  the  body's  move- 
ments, checks  its  evil  appetites,  subdues  its  pas- 
sions, guards  it  against  dangers.  There  seems, 
indeed,  to  be  hardly  any  limit  to  this  majestic 
power  of  the  spirit.  Unlike  other  energies,  the 
more  it  does,  the  stronger  and  more  triumphant 
it  becomes.  It  can  convert  even  the  flames  of 
martyrdom  into  "  a  bed  of  roses." 

But  the  denial  of  immortality  involves  the 
preposterous  paradox  that  when  the  body  is 
aged  and  infirm,  ready  to  dissolve  into  dust, 
then  the  spirit  loses  its  mastery.  It  succumbs 
when  the  body  is  at  its  weakest.  The  victor 
surrenders  to  a  vanquished  and  retreating  foe. 
It,  too,  dissolves  -  -  not  merely  into  dust,  but 
into  nothingness.  Surely  that  is  nonsense. 


IMMORTALITY  79 

The  considerations  presented  above  seem  to 
me  to  have  great  weight.  But  there  is  another 
line  of  evidence  which  gives  a  still  deeper  and 
fuller  assurance  of  immortality.  It  is  based 
upon  the  principle  which  it  was  Hegel's  chief 
merit  to  have  emphasised,  namely,  that  "  the 
Whole  is  the  Truth."  In  other  words,  the 
various  branches  of  knowledge  are  not  isolated 
fragments,  but  are  so  interconnected  as  to  form 
one  organic  system.  Hence  there  can  be  no 
surer  test  of  any  supposed  knowledge  than  that 
it  thoroughly  conforms  with  all  other  spheres 
of  knowledge. 

Such  a  proof  of  immortality  I  now  seek  to 
outline.  To  this  end  let  us  roughly  divide 
knowledge  into  three  spheres  -  -  religion,  moral- 
ity and  physical  science. 

Religion.  That  the  belief  in  immortality  is 
an  essential  element  in  all  religion,  no  one  will 
seriously  deny.  Even  the  Buddhist  believes  in 
a  future  life ;  although  his  atheism  has  made 
that  life  seem  so  hideous  that  he  wildly  strives 
to  escape  from  it  into  "  Nirvana."  And  a  few 
European  thinkers  have  so  far  followed  in 
Buddha's  footsteps  as  to  affirm  immortality 
without  accepting  God's  existence.  But  these 
are  abnormal  exceptions.  Normally  the  devel- 
opment of  the  one  belief  goes  hand  in  hand  with 
that  of  the  other.  As  Rashdall  says  : l  "  Jew- 

i  Theory  of  Good  and  Evil,  II,  p.  218. 


80  THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

ish  theology  only  reached  the  level  of  pure 
Monotheism  a  very  little  before  a  developed  be- 
lief in  Immortality  (as  distinct  from  a  mere 
survival,  which  could  hardly  be  called  life,  in 
a  shadowy  Sheol)  began  to  appear."  Still 
more  clearly  does  this  law  hold  in  Christian 
history.  As  the  belief  in  God  advances  or  re- 
cedes, so  does  the  conception  of  a  future  life. 
The  perfect  correlation  of  the  two  beliefs,  then, 
is  obvious.  All  history  teaches  it. 

Morality.  Some  moralists  protest  against 
linking  ethics  with  the  doctrine  of  immortality. 
Like  Spinoza,  they  insist  that  virtue  is  its  own 
reward,  and  vice  its  own  punishment.  Or  like 
Hume,  they  urge  that  the  absence  of  compen- 
sating justice  in  this  world  is  a  very  poor  proof 
of  its  presence  in  another  and  unknown  world.2 
But  they  all  take  too  narrow  a  view  of  the 
future  life  as  merely  a  place  of  rewards  and 
punishments.  Kant's  insight  was  much  deeper 
and  truer.  He  saw,  as  in  a  vision,  the  primary 
and  profounder  meaning  of  the  future  life.  It 
was  something  more  than  a  penitentiary  for 
some  and  a  palace  for  others.  Immortality 
was  the  guarantee  of  a  nobler  development  for 
man  than  could  be  obtained  under  earthly  con- 
ditions. Or  as  he  put  it,  "  The  highest  good  is 
practically  possible  only  on  the  presupposition 
of  the  immortality  of  the  soul." 

2pfleiderer:     Philosophy  of  Religion,  IV,  p.  168. 


IMMORTALITY  81 

There  is,  however,  one  serious  flaw  in  Kant's 
argument.  His  illusionism  led  him  to  an  agnos- 
tic theory  of  God  and  the  soul.  Thus  he  un- 
consciously tore  down  the  foundation  of  his 
argument  for  immortality.  That  foundation 
we  have  now  restored.  The  existence  of  God 
and  the  soul  have  both  been  proved.  Kant's 
argument  is  thus  finally  perfected.  The  belief 
in  Morality  and  the  belief  in  Immortality  have 
been  shown  to  be  so  closely  interrelated  that 
neither  can  be  destroyed  without  destroying  the 
other. 

Science.  The  conflict  of  religion  and  science 
was  at  first  inevitable.  For  they  were  opposite 
tendencies  ;  the  one  was  engrossed  with  the  in- 
visible, the  other  with  the  visible.  But  now  a 
harmony,  like  that  of  music,  begins  to  mani- 
fest itself  between  them. 

(1)  Consider  the  supreme  principle  of  mod- 
ern science  —  the  doctrine  of  evolution.  At 
first  religion  protested  fiercely  against  the  new 
doctrine  as  atheism.  To-day  it  generally  ac- 
cepts Fiske's  saying  :  "  The  more  thoroughly 
we  comprehend  the  process  of  evolution,  the 
more  we  are  apt  to  feel  that  to  deny  the  ever- 
lasting persistence  of  the  spiritual  element  in 
man  is  to  rob  the  whole  process  of  its  mean- 
ing." 3 


The   second   grand   triumph   of  modern 
3  Destiny  of  Man,  p.  116. 


82          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

science  was  the  discovery  of  the  Conservation 
of  Energy.  Science,  at  first  engrossed  with  the 
visible,  has  become  a  revelation  of  the  invisible. 
For  the  various  forms  of  energy  which  it  has 
brought  to  light  are  not  perceptible  to  the 
senses.  They  are  inferred  from  the  effects  they 
produce.  And  the  law  of  conservation  is  but 
a  more  exact  statement  of  what  religion  pro- 
claimed long  ago.  "  The  things  which  are  seen 
are  temporal;  but  the  things  which  are  not 
seen  are  eternal." 

(3)  There  is  a  third  feature  of  the  scientific 
movement   which   tells    much   for   my    purpose. 
Lotze  concludes  his  Logic  with  a  fervid  hope 
that   Science  would  not   always  be  content  to 
merely  predict  but  would  seek  to  comprehend. 
But  despite  its  wonderful  progress  since  then, 
science  shows  no   sign  of  such  a  change.     On 
the  contrary,  it  insists  more  firmly  than  ever 
that  its  mission  is  to  predict,  not  to  explain. 
And  to  this  norm  our  knowledge  of  immortality 
conforms.      It   is  not  a  mere  possibility ;  it  is 
predictable   with    full    assurance.     But    its    de- 
tails  cannot  be   comprehended ;   "  neither   have 
entered  into  the  heart  of  man  the  things  which 
God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  love  him." 

(4)  It  is  too  early  to  judge  concerning  the 
efforts  to  prove  immortality  by  "  psychical  re- 
search."    A   score   of   centuries   intervened   be- 
tween the  crude  glimpses  of  evolution  gained  by 


IMMORTALITY  83 

Aristotle  and  St.  Augustine  and  the  final  tri- 
umph of  Darwin.  A  host  of  discoveries  had  to 
be  made  before  the  gap  between  surmise  and 
certainty  could  be  closed.  But  science  moves 
far  more  swiftly  now  than  then.  And  I  believe 
that  at  no  very  distant  day  it  will  show  us 
that  the  dead  are  still  alive. 

At  any  rate,  we  have  now  seen  that  science 
and  the  belief  in  immortality  are  in  full  accord. 
Both  are  built  upon  the  same  triple  basis.  (1) 
The  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy  is  the 
same  as  the  idea  of  immortality ;  only  it  is  ex- 
pressed in  terms  of  physical  science.  (2)  Evo- 
lution —  aye  !  even  natural  selection  —  reveals 

•J 

the  real  trend  of  life  beyond  the  grave.  (3) 
Science,  as  predictive,  but  unable  to  fully  com- 
prehend, precisely  mirrors  our  knowledge  of 
the  world  to  come. 

The  belief  in  immortality,  then,  is  in  full  ac- 
cord with  the  three  most  fundamental  principles 
of  modern  science.  With  religion  and  morality 
it  not  only  accords,  but  is  indispensable  to  their 
very  existence.  Thus  all  spheres  of  human 
knowledge  in  unison  proclaim  the  immortality 
of  the  soul.  Whoever  denies  or  doubts  that 
immortality  arrays  himself  against  the  entire 
organized  system  of  human  knowledge  -  -  fights 
against  that  Whole  which  is  the  Truth. 

Nothing  has  so  much  hindered  human  prog- 
ress and  welfare  as  man's  pugnacity  and  nar- 


84  THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

row-mindedness.  The  theologian,  the  moralist 
and  the  scientist  all  look  askance  at  each  other, 
ever  ready  for  a  dispute.  But  there  is  no  more 
need  of  a  quarrel  between  these  three  forms 
of  knowledge  than  between  three  branches  of 
one  tree.  They  all  spring  from  a  common 
root,  the  thought  of  causality.  And  they  all 
point  to  a  common  sky  —  the  many-colored 
dome  of  immortality. 


'  .      '  »     a  '     ' 

'„••.:,,.. 


CHAPTER  VII 
CONCLUSION 

Doubt  is  expanding.  Formerly  it  was  con- 
fined to  religion  and  morals.  To-day  it 
spreads  its  black  shadows  over  all  science  — 
even  over  geometry.  For  example,  take  that 
monumental  work,  "  The  Foundations  of  Sci- 
ence." Its  author,  Poincare,  one  of  the  great- 
est mathematicians  of  all  time,  there  contends 
with  wonderful  skill  and  power  that  the  first 
principles  of  science  have  no  logical  basis,  can- 
not be  verified.  They  are  mere  conventions 
framed  and  accepted  by  scientists,  because  they 
are  "  convenient,"  because  "  without  them  sci- 
ence would  be  impossible'  (p.  173).  So  far 
no  one  has  really  answered  him. 

And  there  is  no  possible  answer,  I  think, 
except  one  derived  from  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciple proved  in  our  first  chapter.  Consider, 
e.  g.  his  chief  paradox,  one  upon  which  he  lav- 
ishes a  hundred  pages,  one  that  is  the  tap-root 
of  all  the  rest  -  -  the  denial  of  space.  The  gist 
of  it  he  gives  in  these  italicised  words :  '  // 
there  were  no  solid  bodies,  there  would  be  no 

geometry  "  (p.  73). 

85 


86          THE  SOUL'S  EXISTENCE 

Now  our  fundamental  principle  was  that  to 
know  any  reality  aright,  we  must  think  it  in 
terms  of  cause  and  effect.  Thereby  we  proved 
the  reality  of  space.  Poincare  saw  one-half 
of  this  truth ;  that  space  could  be  known  only 
through  its  effects  -  -  the  spatial  relations  of 
solid  bodies.  But  he  did  not  see  the  other  half; 
that  we  could  not  know  these  spatial  relations 
if  we  had  no  knowledge  of  that  one,  infinite 
space  upon  which  they  depend. 

We  conclude,  then,  that  one  and  the  same 
principle  -  -  that  of  causality  —  guarantees  our 
knowledge  of  both  the  spiritual  and  the  physical. 
We  have  no  more  reason,  then,  for  doubting  the 
existence  of  souls  than  for  doubting  the  truths 
of  geometry. 


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AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

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THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  5O  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


MAR  20  193^ 


LD 





NOV151968     2 


•*AN  5    1956  LU 


•— >  r—  /-»^ 

. . 


JAN  8     19 


LD  21-100m-7,'33 


YB  22933 


304129 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


